Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Works of Art (Export Licences)

Mr. R. Harris: asked the President of the Board of Trade why it is necessary for a person or firm to obtain a licence to export works of art over £500 in value to countries outside the sterling area; and why the term "works of art" is interpreted so widely by Government Departments that it includes book labels produced from a hand-engraved copper plate and low-priced reprints from other hand-engraved plates, whereas mechanical reproductions are not so included.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir David Eccles): Exports of works of art are controlled to conserve objects of national importance and to support the exchange control. There is no precise definition of a work of art, but for control purposes it is held to include hand-engraved plates and hand-printed impressions thereof. Some of these are very valuable: those which are not may be exported freely under an open general licence provided that the value of any consignment does not exceed £500.

Mr. Harris: Will the President do his best to remove all the restrictions that he can from this industry which, although small, can be quite a useful little dollar-earner?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I certainly will, but just at the moment it is not possible to relax the exchange control provisions.

British Industries Fair

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will reconsider the decision of his predecessor

to withdraw the Government grant from the British Industries Fair; and whether, in consultation with the main industrial organisations concerned, he will reallocate the money formerly spent on publicity for the Fair to the encouragement of greatly improved exhibits, in particular of textiles, pottery and man-made fibre materials.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir. I think that this money could be better spent on showing British goods in trade fairs abroad.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Will not the President of the Board of Trade reconsider that reply? Does he not agree that our export industries have made a great contribution towards the solution of our economic difficulties? If so, do they not deserve some encouragement, especially the pottery and man-made fibre industries?

Sir D. Eccles: I certainly agree, but it is their view also that, with the limited resources, it is better to exhibit abroad rather than here.

Hire Purchase and Credit Sales

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement concerning general protection against repossession afforded to hirers for goods in excess of £300 in value, particularly where the hirer becomes unemployed or is working short time.

Sir D. Eccles: As my hon. Friend told the hon. Lady on 19th February, I have no evidence that unwarranted repossessions are taking place, and I do not consider that any change in the scope of the hire-purchase Acts is necessary.

Miss Burton: Does not the President agree that it is quite ridiculous that hirers of goods of a value up to £300 are protected but that those where the value is over that figure are not? is he aware that I myself have had two cases where people hiring in excess of £300 have been threatened with repossession, and is he prepared to look into the matter again without a whole host of examples?

Sir D. Eccles: The hirer is protected by these Acts, and traders in general do not seek repossession unless there is good reason for it. We have not had complaints which would justify new legislation.

Miss Burton: But the President is not answering my Question. Am I not correct in saying that the hirer is not protected where the cash value of the goods is above £300?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, that is quite true, but unless there is a real case, no one wants to bring forward new legislation.

Miss Burton: Well, I have given the right hon. Gentleman two cases.

Miss Burton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will amend the Hire-Purchase and Credit Sale Agreements (Control) Order, 1956, to permit extension of the maximum period for the payment of instalments in cases of hardship.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Sir J. Lucas) was informed on 29th January, it is not a contravention of the Order for an owner to accept whatever payments a hirer can afford to make, so long as there is no variation of the original hire-purchase agreement.

Miss Burton: That is exactly what I have put down. Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that if a man falls upon hard times and asks for longer to pay his contributions, the firm is not legally allowed to extend the period beyond the original agreement? What are they to do in a case like that? Does the Minister not know that the firms themselves have written to me, and also to him, asking for this change?

Sir D. Eccles: I think the hon. Lady is wrong. It is illegal to vary the agreement by extending the period of repayment beyond a permitted maximum, but if the purchaser does not make the payments, that is not a breach of the Order.

Newsprint Industry

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will refer the activities of the newsprint producers in this country to the Monopolies Commission.

Sir D. Eccles: In considering future references to the Commission, I will take into account any information that my hon. and gallant Friend may wish to provide.

Air Commodore Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that these industries affect every citizen in Britain, and that it would be as well, perhaps, to look into their affairs?

New Industries, North-East Suffolk

Mr. Edward Evans: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the large increase in the numbers of unemployed during the last months in the Lowestoft area; and whether he will take steps to encourage new industries, especially in the field of light manufacturing, to establish themselves there and in other small towns in north-east Suffolk where there are adequate facilities.

Sir D. Eccles: I am aware of the recent increase of unemployment in the Lowestoft area. The Board of Trade will continue to bring Lowestoft and neighbouring towns which are in need of new industry to the attention of suitable firms.

Mr. Evans: Is the President aware that two contributory causes of redundancy and unemployment in that area are, first, the shortage of steel for the ship-repairing and shipbuilding yards and, secondly, the importation of Portuguese processed timber?

Sir D. Eccles: I was not aware of those two contributory causes, but I will look into them.

European Common Market

Mr. Page: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish a list of goods manufactured in this country which are of strategic defence importance and the manufacture of which he is accordingly prepared to sustain by sufficient tariff protection in any European Common Market arrangement so that this country is not dependent upon a foreign country for such goods in time of war.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir.

Mr. Page: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if the protection of the tariff is removed some goods might cease to be manufactured here, that some of them are vitally important in an emergency from a strategic defence point of view, and that some of us may be hesitant about giving our blessing to the Common Market if


we are not assured that those defence and strategic considerations are taken into consideration?

Sir D. Eccles: I think that the Free Trade Area should strengthen most of the industries which are commonly regarded as strategic, but I can assure my hon. Friend that if there prove to be exceptional cases we shall have to consider them for special treatment on their merits at the time.

Mr. Page: Would my right hon. Friend look into the case of the cable makers?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, but it will be a long time before any trouble arises there.

Mr. Page: asked the President of the Board of Trade if, before he enters into negotiations with other European countries for the purposes of a European Common Market upon definitions of the country of manufacture of any particular goods, he will publish the results of his present questionnaires to industries concerning the proportion of work done to imported goods in preparation for sale.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir. The document to which my hon. Friend refers was sent to a number of trade associations on a confidential basis, and it would not be desirable to publish the replies.

Mr. Page: Will my right hon. Friend appreciate that it is a little difficult to consider the advisability of a Common Market on broad principles, and that many of us want to consider how it affects each industry? Is it not an important consideration to know in what country goods are manufactured? If I may give as an example a shirt cut out in Japan, made up in Hong Kong, the buttons being sewn on in Western Germany, who has manufactured the goods?

Sir D. Eccles: Those are very important considerations, and we shall look into them. But it would not help our negotiating position to reveal all this information in advance.

Factories, North-East Development Area

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many Government financed factories in the North-East Development Area have been sold;

what was the original capital cost of these factories; and how much has been received as a result of the sales.

Sir D. Eccles: Two, Sir. It is not the general practice to disclose details of sales, but I can say that no loss to the Exchequer was involved.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the President say whether this sale of factories in Development Areas represents a departure in policy, and is it to be widely extended or strictly confined to individual sites?

Sir D. Eccles: I do not think it is a departure in policy. It seems to me to be a rather sensible thing to do, because if a manufacturer buys his factory, the position of the industry in the neighbourhood is likely to be stabilised.

Mr. Willey: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this will be allowed generally, or will it be considered by his Department only in special circumstances?

Sir D. Eccles: I should certainly want to look at each case very carefully on its merits.

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will relax the restrictions on the building of extensions to Government-owned factories in Development Areas with particular reference to factories on the North Tees Estate, Stockton-on-Tees.

Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir; it is still necessary to exercise the strictest economy in Government expenditure, and the policy in respect of the building of factories and extensions in the Development Areas remains as explained by my right hon. and learned Friend in answer to a Question by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), on 5th June, 1956.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is it not somewhat unfair that private factories in Development Areas can go ahead with extensions, whereas firms in the trading estates are debarred from doing so? Is the President not aware that this is causing considerable disquiet, which may result in certain factories leaving the Development Areas in the near future?

Sir D. Eccles: Firms in the development estates are not debarred from doing so, if they will do it themselves. As a


matter of fact, there are two applications for extensions from tenants on the North Tees Estate, and one of these firms is considering building for itself.

Mr. Jay: But surely, even in their economy campaigns, the Government are capable of distinguishing between capital development and current expenditure?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes.

Mr. T. Williams: Might I ask the President how he squares his first reply with the fact that large Government building costing millions of pounds is now being undertaken in Manchester, for which there is no necessity at all?

Sir D. Eccles: I should have to see when these Government buildings in Manchester were started and when authorised.

Anglo-Spanish Trade

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the unbalanced nature of Anglo-Spanish trade; and what action he proposes to remedy this.

Sir D. Eccles: I am aware that Spanish imports from this country fall short of our imports from Spain. But Spain makes substantial payments to other countries in the sterling area, and I see no reason to vary our present policy of seeking to promote trade with Spain in both directions.

Mr. Jeger: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that that is a very complacent attitude, and that the facts are that the Spanish Government have been playing ducks and drakes with us for many years, with all the ducks on our side and the drakes on theirs?

Sir D. Eccles: If I understand the hon. Gentleman aright, I think the answer to him is that over the last five years Spanish imports from this country have proportionately increased more than our sales to Spain.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the British horticulturist is far more interested in the tomato trade than in ducks and drakes, and will he make quite certain that the Board of Trade keeps a careful watch on the position so that the home producer of tomatoes is not undermined by a flood of imports from Alicante?

Mr. H. Wilson: Would the right hon. Gentleman say what he meant when he said just now that Spanish imports have increased more than our sales to Spain?

Sir D. Eccles: I apologise to the House. What I meant, of course, was that the Spaniards have been buying more from us in total over the last five years than we have from them.

Radio Valves and Cathode Ray Tubes (Report)

Mr. Lewis: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take the necessary action to amend the Monopolies Act, 1948, so as to enable him to take action to prevent the continuance of the type of restrictive practices described in the Monopolies Commission's Report on the radio valve and electronic tube industry.

Mr. Rankin: asked the President of the Board of Trade what further proceedings he proposes to take in relation to the Report of the Monopolies Commission on cathode ray tubes and electronic valves.

Sir D. Eccles: In so far as the type of practices described in the Report are registrable under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956, they are subject to the procedures laid down in that Act. In the case of other types of practice, the Monopolies Act, 1948, already allows the Monopolies Commission to be asked to report on the effect of such practices on the public interest, and action under Section 10 of that Act may follow a Report of this kind. No amendment of the Monopolies Act, 1948, is therefore needed. I see no occasion to take and further action in regard to the Report.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that his right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State said that there was the necessity to amend the Act? While we are now pleased to hear that that is not the case, may I ask him whether he proposes to take some definite action to stop this blatant attempt to push up the cost of these tubes, and to help us to reduce the cost of living? Here is one example where the Minister can take action.

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. My right hon. and learned Friend did not say that. If there are


objectionable practices which are registrable, no doubt someone will see that that is done.

Mr. Rankin: Does not the Minister's answer justify everything which was said on this side of the House during the passage of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act? Is it not now clear that the process of taking any action based upon the Reports which are now coming forward is going to be so slow as to destroy the whole purpose of the Act?

Sir D. Eccles: I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the industries concerned take action themselves.

Mr. Jay: Whatever the Minister of State may have said, are the Government really going to take no action on this Report at all; and if not, will the President tell us why?

Sir D. Eccles: Because it appears that the recommendations have already been attended to.

Miss Lee: Will the Minister please get in touch with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and invoke his services in order to make quite clear to the public the degree of profiteering which is being endured in these respects, and will he further realise that it is his responsibility to protect the public and, therefore, if profiteering continues the only thing to do is to make those services national industries?

Sir D. Eccles: I do not agree that profiteering is continuing here.

Mr. Jay: Will the President tell us which recommendations he mentioned are being attended to?

Sir D. Eccles: That is another question.

Mr. Rankin: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that there is a growing practice by which old cathode ray tubes for television sets are being reconditioned and resold; and whether he will introduce legislation to ensure that adequate guarantees of serviceability are issued in such cases.

Sir D. Eccles: The facts are as stated, but there is no case for legislation. It is for the purchaser of reconditioned tubes to insist upon assurance of their serviceability.

Mr. Rankin: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the 14-in. tube is being reconditioned and sold at £8? Does this not justify the widespread dissatisfaction concerning the reductions that were introduced for the new tubes last September and prove that the reduction of £2 is still quite insufficient? Will not the Minister look at this matter again and see what he can do to guarantee to these people that the tubes they buy will be serviceable for a stated period of months or years?

Sir D. Eccles: The best thing that these people can do is to deal with a merchant whom they can trust. [Interruption.] That is the only way in which the customer can protect himself.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the Minister consider whether the matter cannot be referred to the British Standards Institution for a specification to be drawn which would give the people a guarantee of first-class quality in tubes? If a mark were adopted which people could trust, they could buy the tube from any dealer provided that it carried the mark.

Sir D. Eccles: I am not sure that any such mark would be of any use in the case of a reconditioned tube, but I will consider it.

East Germany (Trade)

Mr. Lewis: asked the President of the Board of Trade details of the types of goods involved in the £2,400,000 imports and £1,500,000 exports between East Germany and this country during last year; and to what extent he proposes to extend this trade and balance the account between imports and exports.

Sir D. Eccles: I will, with permission, circulate the Answer to the first part of the Question in the OFFICIAL REPORT. As regards the latter part, imports into East Germany are strictly controlled by the Communist authorities, and I doubt whether there is scope materially to extend our trade there.

Mr. Lewis: That reply is a little more encouraging than the one we had last week. Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it is not the policy of the Government to use political objections to prevent trade with any of these countries and that, provided normal commercial terms are agreed to, he will


extend trade with any country—of course, bearing in mind strategic considerations?

Sir D. Eccles: Subject to the last words of the hon. Member's question, Yes.

Mr. Beswick: Is the President aware that one reason why there is a restriction upon the entry of goods from this country into Eastern Germany is that ours is one of the few countries which has no financial agreement with the

TRADE WITH EAST GERMANY IN 1956



£

£


Imports
2,405,952
Exports and re-exports
1,537,054


including

including



Chemicals
1,156,592
Fish and fish preparations
119,862


Machinery
311,020
Miscellaneous animal and crude materials
150,574


Petroleum and petroleum products
214,787
Nonferrous metals
102,306


Crude fertilisers and crude minerals excluding fuel
312,140
Machinery
273,087


Various manufactures
437,054
Various manufactures
234,216




Re-exports
546,903

Sparking Plugs and Anti-freeze

Miss Lee: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the high rate of profit extracted by the trade rings controlling the selling price of sparking plugs and anti-freeze; and if he will refer these trades to the Monopolies Commission.

Sir D. Eccles: I am aware of what is alleged about the prices of these articles. Sparking plugs will be included in the reference to the Monopolies Commission on certain electrical equipment for motor vehicles announced by my predecessor on 23rd November. Anti-freeze will be borne in mind when considering future references to the Commission.

Miss Lee: Is the Minister aware that his Answer is thoroughly unsatisfactory? May I take it for granted that he is aware that the profit that the retailer has to ask on anti-freeze is over 100 per cent. and on sparking plugs just under 100 per cent., and that at least one retailer to my knowledge has been served with legal notice and is in danger of going to gaol because he thinks that 50 per cent. profit is adequate?

Sir D. Eccles: That is exactly the kind of question which will now be investigated.

Eastern German Government? Is anything being done to provide a financial arrangement which will facilitate the exchange of goods between our two countries?

Sir D. Eccles: As the hon. Member knows, we do not have official relations with Eastern Germany and, therefore, we cannot make any inter-governmental arrangements.

Following is the information:

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Miss Lee: On a point of order. The Minister has said that this is the kind of question that will be investigated, but I have got this information and he has every means of getting it. When, there-fore, can the public have protection?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Commonwealth and Colonial Trade (Exhibition)

Mr. Brockway: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will propose an industry and trade exhibition in the United Kingdom for Commonwealth, Colonial, and Trusteeship territories to focus attention on the mutual benefits of complementary trading agreements with these territories.

Sir D. Eccles: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kerby) on 18th February.

Mr. Brockway: I have read that Answer. Will the right hon. Gentleman show a little more enterprise and imagination in these matters? Is he aware that the Iron Curtain countries are holding exhibitions of this character and that


the Japanese Government have a large floating exhibition which is travelling the seas? Surely, we should be doing something to extend trade with the Commonwealth and the Colonies and utilise their enormous potentials for our sterling trade.

Sir D. Eccles: I am certainly well aware of what the hon. Member has said, but he will also be aware that there is a limit to the number of exhibitions we can put on in any one year, limited not only by Government finance but by what the trades concerned can do. We take advice on this matter from traders, and they think that the present policy in regard to exhibitions gives the best results from our limited resources.

Australian Trade Agreement

Mr. Chichester-Clark: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the negotiations for a new trade agreement with Australia.

Sir D. Eccles: I am glad to state that the new Agreement based on the Heads of Agreement announced last November was signed in Canberra today. Copies are available in the Vote Office.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: In thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is satisfied that British exports will continue to receive worthwhile margins of preference in Australia?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. The British preference will be from 7½ per cent. to 10 per cent. over a very wide range of goods.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Post-War Credits

Mr. Shurmer: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider paying post-war credits to persons suffering from some incurable disease and receiving permanent sick pay and who can produce a medical certificate to certify that they will be unable to work again, bearing in mind that many of these people are having to augment their sick pay with National Assistance, whilst substantial sums of money are standing in their name.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): I appreciate the sympathy the hon. Member has for these

people, but I cannot anticipate my Budget statement.

Mr. Shurmer: I hope that the Chancellor will be sympathetic towards these proposals. No doubt many hon. Members could quote cases, but I will quote just one. Because of rheumatoid arthritis, a man aged 60 has been unable to work for the past ten years and will never work again. He has £84 in postwar credits. He and his wife are living on £4 6s. a week sick pay and National Assistance. Is it fair that people who will never work again should suffer while they have large sums as post-war credits? Surely, something can be done for these people.

Mr. Baldwin: Will my right hon. Friend give this matter further consideration, particularly for those people who are drawing National Assistance, or those who are too proud to draw it, and who have post-war credits? Will he give the matter his favourable consideration for his Budget statement?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Of course, I have listened to the points which have been put from both sides of the House, but hon. Members will understand that this is clearly a budgetary matter and one on which I could not possibly make a statement today.

Mrs. Butler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the form issued to applicants for the payment of post-war credits requires information concerning the present employment of the applicant; and if he will state the reason for this requirement.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir. This information enables the Inland Revenue to trace the claimant's Income Tax records for the post-war credit years in order to confirm the amount due to him.

Mrs. Butler: Is the Chancellor aware that to do that it is not necessary to have the address of the applicant's present employer if the applicant has undertaken employment since retiring? Is he aware that a great many of these retired persons would be unable to secure employment if they gave their true ages, because they are retired, and that this provision makes it impossible for them to apply for their post-war credits without revealing to their employer their retirement age in many


cases? Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not this particular section could be deleted from the form?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I have made some inquiries about this question because I queried the relevance of this requirement. I understand that the employer is not informed and that the information is solely for the purpose of tracing old Income Tax papers. If the hon. Lady would like to see me, I think that I could satisfy her that this is a necessary link in the repayment of the credits.

Members (Death or Injury)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the fact that the subsistence allowance payable to Ministers and Members of Parliament whilst away on duty is limited to that paid to civil servants of the rank of assistant secretary and above, he will make provision for compensation for death and injury whilst travelling on duty to be paid to Ministers and Members of Parliament on the same scale as that payable to civil servants.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I am considering this matter.

Pensions (Insurance Premiums)

Mr. Page: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer his estimate, to a recent convenient date, of the volume of premiums upon insurance-securing pensions which will rank for Income Tax and Surtax relief by virtue of the Finance Act, 1956.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The information at present available is insufficient to form a basis for such an estimate.

Export-Import Bank (Loan Agreement)

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the negotiations for a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States of America.

Mr. Jay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the negotiations for a 500 million dollar loan from the Export-Import Bank have now been concluded.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The formal Agreement with the Export-Import Bank of Washington establishing a 500 million

dollar line of credit in favour of the United Kingdom was signed in Washington yesterday, 25th February. The text of the Agreement will be published as a Command Paper as soon as possible. The Agreement enables us to recoup at any time up to 28th February, 1958, a substantial part of our dollar expenditure on goods and services from the beginning of this year, and the gold and dollar reserves are thus effectively reinforced to this extent. Whether, and if so when, to draw on the credit will be a matter of judgment to be decided in the light of circumstances.

Mr. Wilson: Since it has taken nearly three months to negotiate this loan, despite the very full security that Her Majesty's Government have offered, will the right hon. Gentleman say what difficulties have been encountered in the negotiations? While, of course, we shall want to study the Command Paper before commenting on it, will the Chancellor say what rate of interest applies to this loan?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The rate of interest is 4½ per cent. on the money as drawn, that is to say, we are not paying any interest on the money until we actually draw it. I do not think that any unusual difficulties have arisen in this case, and if there were any I would not wish to go over them. We are not pressed for this loan. There is no immediate need for it. The help that it gives is to make a substantial reinforcement to the reserve, and I am very happy that this has taken place.

Small Fixed Income Groups

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that new proposals for dealing with problems arising from National Insurance benefits are under consideration by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, he will give an assurance that he also will examine ways of assisting those living on small fixed incomes, whether by way of special taxation relief or by freeing all benefits under Government pensions Acts from tax at an age to be agreed.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I am afraid I cannot add to the reply given on 31st January to a Question by my hon. Friend about tax reliefs for persons living on small fixed incomes.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Prime Minister, in his broadcast to the nation, referred to people who were living on small fixed incomes? Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that I am looking forward to his doing something to meet the pledge that the Prime Minister gave on that very auspicious occasion?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I will certainly bear in mind what the Prime Minister said, as I will, of course, bear in mind the hon. Lady's representations.

Dr. King: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he can give immediate and practical help to a group, with whom all of us profess to be sympathetic, if he will exempt from Income Tax in his new Budget small-pension incomes at a certain age and a certain amount?

Mrs. Mann: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has asked for assurances time and again and that his predecessor, in January and on other dates, simply led her up the garden? He always declared that his intentions were honourable and has constantly failed to make a definite proposal.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I would much prefer to stand by his honour than by the honour of hon. Members opposite?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This all seems very wide of the Question.

Cost of Living

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment has been made of the rise in the cost of living resulting from the Rent Bill; and what proposals are under consideration for meeting it from Treasury sources for people whose incomes have been fixed on the basis of rent control.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: As my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Defence told the House during the Second Reading debate on the Rent Bill, the increases in the cost of living resulting from the Bill may eventually amount to two points. As regards the second part of the Question, no such proposals are under consideration.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it has been said in support of the Rent Bill that it is not

fair to allow the landlords to subsidise other members of the community and that it was asked yesterday whether those on National Assistance would receive money in respect of the increased rents which they would have to pay when rents are increased under the Bill? Am I to understand that this matter has not yet had the consideration of my right hon. Friend?

Hon. Members: Still up the garden path.

Mr. Thorneycroft: This is an extremely relevant argument, but one which is much more appropriate to discussion on the Rent Bill than on this Question.

Mr. Dodds: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the concern arising from the recent rise in the cost-of-living index to its highest level yet, what action the Government propose to take to deal with this situation.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I do not think that the recent small increase in the index requires any change in the general anti-inflationary policies of the Government.

Mr. Dodds: But does not the Chancellor appreciate that the cost of living is at its highest point ever, largely due to Government action, with heavy increases in rents and rates to follow? Will he answer the Question: what action does he or do the Government propose to take, or will he tell the people bluntly that they do not intend to control, or try to control, the cost of living?

Mr. Thorneycroft: As a matter of fact, the cost of living has remained remarkably stable since my right hon. Friend announced his policy of maintaining prices at a plateau.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to remove the feeling in many parts of the country that the Government's only policy for dealing with this problem is by maintaining a very high degree of unemployed capacity in British industry which is the position today, and which may lead, of course, to unemployed resources? Secondly, instead of his preoccupation with the cost-of-living index, would the right hon. Gentleman personally look at some budgets which were presented in London yesterday in the course of certain wage arbitration hearings? Will he look at the


actual budgets of how people are living in this country, rather than spend all his time talking about the cost-of-living index?

Mr, Thorneycroft: I did not initiate the talk about the cost-of-living index. It is referred to in the Question. Amongst all the factors that a Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to be paying attention to, one must include the balance of payments position.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he is now giving to altering the band of tax reliefs introduced in the 1955–56 Budget in such a way as to provide a means of helping those who cannot add to their annual income while at the same time applying the ceiling recommended by the Royal Commission on Taxation.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I have noted my hon. Friend's views.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he and his predecessors have always expressed the view that it is very difficult to help people on small fixed incomes? Is he not aware that I am giving him a really brilliant suggestion? If so, will he pay some attention to it?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am always ready to consider by hon. Friend's suggestions.

Bank Rate

Mr. Roy Jenkins: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is now his policy for the future level of the Bank Rate.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 7th February to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson).

Mr. Jenkins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that reply would have been equally appropriate if he had put the Bank Rate up or if he had kept it where it was? In particular, could he tell us whether last week's cuts in the social services were, in the Government's view, a corollary of the cut in the Bank Rate? If so, on the basis of the Government's policy, how many further cuts must we have before the Bank Rate goes back to the normal level?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not think that the two are relevant to each other, but the point made by the hon. Member that

it was possible to refer the reply to a rise or a fall was the great merit of that reply.

Mr. Osborne: Will my right hon. Friend say that it is the Government's objective to cut down the Bank Rate as soon as possible and that they do not like dear money for its own sake? If the bill rate continues to fall, will the Bank Rate follow?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not think that it would be at all helpful if I started making prophecies about the movements of the Bank Rate.

Mr. H. Wilson: Since the right hon. Gentleman's answer to me, to which he has referred, conveyed no information, and as, since then, there has been a statement by the Governor of the Bank of England, does he not accept our argument from this side of the House last year, when we suggested to him that it is still possible to run an effective monetary policy without a Bank Rate of 5½ per cent., in view of its effect on Government out-payment and overseas balances and so on? Will the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific in his answer to his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne)? Will he say whether it is the policy of the Bank of England, under Government direction, to adopt the new Canadian system of following the Bank Rate rather than influencing it?

Mr. Thorneycroft: There is no fixed rate of Bank Rate, whether above or below 5½ per cent., which is essential to monetary policy. It depends on the circumstances of the moment.

Wool Textiles (Tax)

Dr. Broughton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what sum of money has been received by the Treasury from the Purchase Tax on wool textiles during twelve months up to the latest convenient date.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Separate figures for the tax on wool textiles as a class are not available.

Dr. Broughton: Is the Chancellor aware that there is no Purchase Tax on textiles made of cotton or synthetic fibres and that the imposition of this tax on textiles made of wool is very much


resented? Will he not forgo this comparatively small amount of revenue in order to remove an unjust discrimination against wool textiles, allow fair competition, and put an end to a serious grievance?

Mr. Thorneycroft: This Purchase Tax was levied in this way because at the time, when there was a very substantial reduction in Purchase Tax on textiles, it became evident that from an administrative point of view it would be difficult to have a dual tax, which is normally a feature of textile Purchase Tax—namely, a higher rate on piece goods and a lower rate on manufactured goods—because of the difficulty of collection. It was therefore decided at the time—and the point was argued very widely—that the 10 per cent. tax was the right one.

Mr. Rhodes: Does the right hon. Gentleman regard this tax as a revenue tax or a penal tax?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I certainly would not regard it as a penal tax.

Meat (Import Duty)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the annual revenue which would he derived from an import duty of 10 per cent. on all imported meat, other than imports from Commonwealh countries.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: About £4 million a year. My hon. Friend will be aware that some of these goods are already liable to duty at varying rates.

Mr. Baldwin: In view of the fact that the 10 per cent. duty on bacon brings in a revenue of approximately £8 million and does not increase the price of bacon, does not my right hon. Friend think it would be advisable to put a tax on imported meat and so save the taxpayer some of the cost of the deficiency payments to home producers?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Questions of tariffs in particular cases are for the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. T. Williams: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he thinks that the suggestion of his hon. Friend is one more effort to reduce the cost of living?

Entertainments and Sports (Tax Receipts)

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amounts have been received so far during the current financial year from Entertainments Duty on cinemas, theatres and music halls, football matches, horse racing, dog racing and speedway racing, respectively; and how this compares with the corresponding period in the financial year 1955–56.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I will, with permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the figures:

The approximate yields of Entertainments Duty on admissions to watch the listed entertainments were as follows:—


Entertainment
Yield from 1st April, 1955 to 31st January, 1956
Yield from 1st April, 1956 to 31st January, 1957



£'000
£'000


Cinemas
28,170
29,000


Theatres and music halls
1,760
1,720


Football matches
1,210
1,220


Horse racing
930
920


Dog racing
460
540


Speedway
50
40

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amounts have been received so far during the current financial year from duty on totalisators on dog racecourses, from bookmakers' licence duty and from duty on football pools; and how this compares with the corresponding period in the financial year 1955–56.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I will, with permission, circulate the reply in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Johnson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if he would tax bookmakers in the same way as they are taxed in Ireland and would divide the proceeds with the sport on which the bets are made, he would go down to history as the benefactor both of sport and the general taxpayer? Will he give that his consideration when he prepares his Budget?

Mr. Thorneycroft: These seem to me to be budgetary matters.

Following is the reply:

The receipts of pool betting duty and of bookmakers' licence duty for the period April, 1956 to January, 1957, and for the corresponding period in 1955–56, were as follows:—


—
1st April, 1956 to 31st January, 1957
1st April, 1955 to 31st January, 1956



£
£


Pool betting duty receipts




At 10 per cent. on greyhound totalisators
5,296,883*
5,125,565


At 30 per cent. on football and similar pools
16,132,461*
15,979,703


Bookmakers' licence duty receipts
1,407,763
1,406,512


*This figure for January, 1957, included in this total is provisional.

National Product and Taxation

Sir K. Joseph: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the approximate rates of Income Tax and company tax which would produce the same yields in real terms as now if the gross national product were, also in real terms, 5 per cent., 10 per cent. and 20 per cent., respectively, greater than in 1955.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: They would be lower, but how much lower depends on so many and so various assumptions about the composition of the gross national product as to be incalculable.

Cinemas

Mr. Rankin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that if a cinema proprietor increases his 1s. admission to 1s. 3d., the Revenue collects 2d, of the increase, the Eady levy gets extra and the proprietor and if he will consider remedying this anomaly in order to secure a fairer share to the cinema industry.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I am aware of this matter and I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) on 31st January.

Mr. Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman does not deal with the last part of my Question, where I asked him if he will not agree that the principle of fair shares might be employed in this regard, and does he not think it is unfair that the

cinema proprietor should collect the odium of having to increase prices while the Chancellor collects the money?

Mr. Thorneycroft: All this was part of the review of Entertainments Duty which my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister undertook to investigate, and it is included in it.

European Common Market

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the decision by the six Messina Powers to include their overseas territories in their proposed common market whether Her Majesty's Government now intend that British overseas territories should be included in the proposed wider area of partially free trade.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The terms of the agreement reached by the Six Powers have only just become available. It is too early for me to assess the significance of this particular aspect of the agreement, about which the Governments of the Colonies will of course need to be consulted.

Major Legge-Bourke: Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will take the necessary steps to ensure that produce from the British Empire will not be completely undermined in its market by an enormous preference being given to the products of, say, the French Union?

Mr. Thorneycroft: What arrangements countries in Europe may come to between themselves and their colonies are not entirely within the control of the British Government. At the same time I can give this assurance, that we do not regard these matters as things which can be settled simply in London, or even in Europe. They are matters for consultation with the Colonies concerned, and that we would propose to undertake.

Mr. J. Edwards: May I ask the Chancellor if he does not appreciate that the decision to include the French and other overseas territories raises serious issues for the Commonwealth countries, and whether he would not take the earliest opportunity to make a statement on this important matter?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Before I made any statement, I think I would like to investigate the facts of the position rather further, and also to undertake certain consultations with the Colonies who, after all,


are the people likely to be affected. That would be the next stage in these discussions.

Mr. H. Wilson: Yes, but is it not a fact that last October the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to Press queries, said that a very serious position would arise, or very different considerations would apply, if the colonies of West European Powers were brought into the scheme? In view of that, and in view of the widespread anxieties about some of the things that have happened, both in his own negotiations and in the Messina negotiations, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the sooner we can have a full statement, and a debate in this House, before further action is taken, the better for all concerned?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The question of a debate is not for me. What I think I have always said is that what arrangements the countries of continental Europe reach amongst themselves is, after all, their affair. We cannot prevent them coming to arrangements. This arrangement would appear to contravene the international obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and it would be necessary to put it before that body in any event. There will, therefore, at that time at any rate, be a full opportunity for the views of other countries to be brought to bear upon it. For our part, however, our next course, having investigated the arrangements in detail, would be to discuss it with the Colonies affected.

Anglo-Czechoslovak Compensation Agreement (Payments)

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Economic Secretary to the Treasury whether any agreement has yet been reached with the Czechoslovak Government for the resumption of payments due by that Government under the Anglo-Czechoslovak Compensation Agreement of 1949.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Nigel Birch): Yes, Sir. An agreement for the resumption of these payments was concluded between the two Governments on 22nd October, 1956. The relevant exchange of notes has been published as a White Paper (Cmnd. 56).

Mr. Fletcher: Would the Minister say what is the amount outstanding and when payments will be resumed?

Mr. Birch: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to private compensation payments. I hope that some payments will be resumed before the middle of this year.

Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884 (Copies)

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why copies of the Criminal Lunatics Act. 1884, are not available at the Stationery Office.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): The Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884, is out of print and the demand for copies is too small to justify the expense of reprinting. Occasional requests for a copy are met by the offer to supply a photographic reproduction.

Dr. Johnson: May I, none the less, draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that this Act is one that affects the liberty of the individual? Will he not make it more readily available than it is? Is he not aware that I was unable to obtain a copy myself on recent inquiry and received no offer of a photostat copy?

Mr. Powell: I will certainly arrange for my hon. Friend or anyone else applying for a copy to obtain a photographic reproduction upon payment.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order. Did we understand the hon. Gentleman to say at the end of his reply that he would supply a copy on payment?

Mr. Powell: Of course. Copies of Acts of Parliament are sold by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Mr. Bevan: Sir, this matter was raised a little while ago and the hon. Gentleman is obviously unaware of it. Was it not said by you, Sir, or by a Minister, that Acts of Parliament would be made available to hon. Members? We ought not to have to pay in order to carry out our legislative duties in the Chamber.

Mr. Powell: The right hon. Gentleman clearly did not listen to my reply. I said "or to anyone else upon payment".

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. If I understood the exchanges aright, I think that by "anyone else" the Minister meant anyone outside the House. Is that what he meant?

Hon. Members: He did not say that.

Mr. Bevan: This is a difficulty from which the Minister could easily extricate us. Does he mean that any hon. Member of this House can have a photostat copy without payment? If so, why did he not say so?

Mr. Powell: Nothing in my reply affects the rights of hon. Members in this House. I only wanted to make it clear that these copies are on sale to the general public like any other copies of Acts of Parliament.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member surely is doing the House a disservice. Does he mean that any hon. Member of this House can have a photostat copy of this Act without payment?

Mr. Powell: Nothing which I have said in any way affects or is intended to derogate from the present right of hon. Members to obtain copies of Acts of Parliament.

Mr. Gaitskell: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not strictly a matter of order at all. There seems to be some difference on both sides of the House as to what was meant by the previous statement, which I recollect quite well, but that is not a point of order, and I hope that some other opportunity will be taken to clear it up.

Mr. Gaitskell: I was going to ask whether the hon. Gentleman has lost the facility for saying "yes" since he has been at the Treasury.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

No. 1, Devonshire Terrace

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will take the necessary steps to preserve No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, W.1, a house of architectural merit and of outstanding historic interest.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): This house is included in the list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest compiled under section 30 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. Two months' notice of any proposal to demolish it or seriously to affect its character must therefore be given to the local planning authority, who are required to notify my right hon. Friend. If any such notice is received the association of the house with Charles Dickens will certainly be borne in mind.

Mr. Robinson: Is the hon. Member aware that this house, in which "David Copperfield" was written—one of the greatest novels in the world—is to be demolished in six months' time unless he or the planning authority does something to stop it? Will he give an assurance that he will not give permission for demolition of this house?

Mr. Bevins: I understand that the London County Council, which is the planning authority, has not yet received notice of any intention to demolish it, nor has it granted planning permission, and, therefore, it would be quite improper for my right hon. Friend to express an opinion one way or the other. The consideration in the Question will certainly be borne in mind.

Essex Development Plan

Mr. B. Harrison: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he has yet approved the Essex county plan: and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Bevins: My right hon. Friend hopes to complete his consideration of the plan in the next few weeks. The maps will require revision in the light of his decisions, before the plan can be formally approved.

Mr. Harrison: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, which is the most helpful one we have had on this subject. Can he make sure that the town plans are published soon, because a number of progressive towns in my constituency have been completely held up in all their development because this plan has not been passed?

Mr. Bevins: I understand that fourteen out of the eighteen town plans have already been fully considered.

Mr. Snow: If the Essex plan is approved, will the hon. Member take note of what has happened in the case of the Surrey plan, where industrial development certificates—?

Mr. Speaker: I think that is beyond the question of the Essex plan.

SHIPBUILDING (TANKERS)

Air Commodore Harvey: asked the Prime Minister if he will set up a committee to deal with the production of large tankers in this country, at the same time covering investment and construction of new shipbuilding yards.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I have nothing to add to the reply I gave on 14th February to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland).

Air Commodore Harvey: Would the Prime Minister bear in mind that many single efforts have been made by individuals and companies to deal with this important problem, and will he at any rate give an assurance to the House that the Government will try to co-ordinate these efforts so that we can be assured that speedy delivery will be made of these large tankers?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. We are trying to make a co-ordinated approach to the whole of this problem which involves tankers and other methods of expediting the supply of oil.

Mr. Willey: In view of the fact that this is not the only problem facing the shipbuilding industry, and in view of its great opportunities at the present moment, would the Prime Minister look at this matter again and consider whether it would not be advisable to set up a committee to consider generally the immediate prospects of the shipbuilding industry?

The Prime Minister: I do not know about setting up a committee. What I said was that I hoped that we should be able to deal with the problem.

OFFICIAL CARS (USE)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister what instructions he has issued to Ministers and junior Ministers concerning the use of cars for private and political party activities; and to what extent Ministers used the State car service during their activities in the North Lewisham by-election.

The Prime Minister: As all my colleagues well know, official cars are available to Ministers to enable them to discharge their official duties. I am not aware that any use was made of the Government Car Service by Ministers in connection with the recent by-election campaign.

Mr. Lewis: While thanking the Prime Minister for that reply, may I ask him whether the same applies with regard to the Macmillan jamboree which took place at Chequers over the weekend, and whether that was an official party or a private party?

The Prime Minister: That Question I understand is down for Thursday, when I shall try to deal with it in the manner which its importance deserves.

DOCTORS' AND DENTISTS' REMUNERATION (ROYAL COMMISSION)

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Prime Minister whether the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on doctors' remuneration will include an examination of the method, as well as the amount, of remuneration.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister when he proposes to announce the names of the members of the Royal Commission to inquire into doctors' remuneration.

The Prime Minister: The terms of reference are under consideration. I intend to announce them and the names of the Chairman and members of the Royal Commission as soon as possible.

Dr. Johnson: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he will extend the terms of reference of the Royal Commission to include the examination of the method of payment by capitation fee, which has not


always been satisfactory either to doctor or patient, and the substitution of another method of payment according to the nature of the service rendered to the individual?

The Prime Minister: I will consider that. We have not yet decided on the terms of reference, but I will be glad to consider what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Hughes: Has the Prime Minister realised that the Daily Telegraph has described the attitude of the Government as "shabby and short-sighted," and does he think that he can treat the doctors as he is going to treat the old-age pensioners?

The Prime Minister: I think that the Daily Telegraph seemed to understand very well in an admirable leader the problems which confront us.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is widespread anxiety that the Royal Commission will take a very long time before reaching its conclusions and that while there may be a case for reviewing the whole question of the method of payments to doctors, there is also a case surely of coming to sonic interim settlement upon their claims?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman had read the letter that I wrote, which was published this morning, he would have seen that that was exactly the point I made.

Mr. Gaitskell: The Prime Minister said nothing in that letter as to exactly how this interim settlement was to be arrived at. Is it to be left to the Royal Commission, or are the Government prepared to do their duty and reach an agreement?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the letter I wrote, which I think was explicit, clear and helpful.

THE PRIME MINISTER (TALKS WITH PRESIDENT EISENHOWER)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Prime Minister if he has considered the effect upon Commonwealth opinion of his choice of Bermuda for his meeting with

President Eisenhower in view of the widespread racial discrimination practised there; and if he will suggest an alteration of the venue.

Mr. M. Stewart: asked the Prime Minister if he will suggest a reconsideration of the venue of Bermuda as a meeting place between himself and President Eisenhower in view of the racial discrimination which is practised in the Colony.

Mrs. Castle: asked the Prime Minister in which buildings in Bermuda he is to hold his talks with President Eisenhower next month.

The Prime Minister: Bermuda was selected on the suggestion of President Eisenhower, and well suits the convenience of both sides. I believe that the country and the Commonwealth will be gratified that these meetings are to take place on British soil. I do not propose any alteration in the arrangements. The meetings will take place in the Mid-Ocean Club.

Mr. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the main point of the Question, which has to deal with racial discrimination. Does he not agree that that is an idea which is wholly alien to everything that the Commonwealth stands for, and would he not have been better advised to have chosen almost any other island in the West Indies?

The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman is misinformed. I am told that there is no right or privilege controlled by law which is not equally available to all Bermudians.

Mr. Stewart: Will the Prime Minister take the opportunity of his visit to Bermuda to see how far the information which he has received is correct?

The Prime Minister: I am certain that it is correct, but I will be very glad to make sure that it is.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: Is the Prime Minister aware that I know the island extremely well and that I am satisfied that race relations in Bermuda are singularly and exceptionally happy? Is it not rather a shame to try to foment trouble where none exists?

HERRING INDUSTRY (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Sir R. BOOTHBY: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about further assistance for the herring industry.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): I will, with permission, Sir, answer Question No. 71.
The Government have considered proposals by the Herring Industry Board and the fishermen's associations for additional financial assistance for the herring industry. In the last two years the herring fleet and catch have each fallen by about 30 per cent. partly because of the attraction of vessels to the white fish industry.
The Government propose that, pending the further development by the Board of measures to make the industry self-supporting, herring fishermen should receive a direct subsidy broadly similar in method, amount and duration to the white fish subsidy for comparable boats; and that the present indirect assistance through the herring oil and meal scheme should cease.
These changes would involve substantially greater assistance in total, but the actual rates of subsidy would be determined by a statutory scheme after further consultation with the Board and the fishermen's associations.
Legislation would be required and for this purpose we propose to ask the House to agree to amending the White Fish and Herring Industries Bill to provide for the payment of the herring subsidy, the moneys for which will be found within the financial limits of the Bill.

Sir R. Boothby: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask him how soon he expects to introduce the Bill and, secondly, whether, in the meantime, in conjunction with the Herring Industry Board, he will give every encouragement to the development of new methods of fishing for herring, which is very important?

Mr. Maclay: In answer to the first question, the answer is as soon as the Bill and the statutory scheme can be prepared. I hope that it will be early in the next financial year.
The answer to the second part of the question is, "Yes."

Mr. Grimond: Will the Minister tell us a little more about the effect which this may have on meal processing? Will it affect the amount of herring sent to processing, or the plans for new fish meal factories?

Mr. Maclay: It is very difficult to judge at the moment what the effects will be on meal. If it means that more boats go herring fishing and perhaps some come back from white fish fishing to herring fishing, the meal supplies might even be increased, but it is extremely difficult to estimate in advance what will happen.

Mr. Woodburn: I am not quite sure whether this will affect the price arrangements for payments as between herring for consumption and herring for meal. Will the Minister explain? Are any of the meal factories to be closed down, or are the same price conditions to continue as exist now, and the differential rates?

Mr. Maclay: No, Sir. The subsidy on meal will be stopped and that means some adjustment in meal prices, obviously. It is difficult to forecast accurately what the ultimate price for meal will be, but the removal of subsidy must alter the price downwards, I expect.
As to the effect, I see no reason to believe that there will be any alteration to the present factories.

Mr. Woodburn: Has there been any consideration in conjunction with the herring trade, or are these negotiations to take place after the Minister has framed his scheme?

Mr. Maclay: There have been no consultations about the statement which I have made, but as I said in my Answer, there will be consultations with the Herring Board and with the fishing associtions as a result of my statement.

Mr. John MacLeod: Is the Minister aware that many fishermen resent being treated as seasonal workers and that there are many anomalies in unemployment benefit? Will he look into that factor,


since many men are leaving the industry because of it? Will he draw the attention of the Herring Industry Board to the harsh way in which they treat loans for fishermen under which, where they have failed, they find difficulty in repaying the loan?

Mr. Maclay: I have noted what my hon. Friend said in the first part of his question, but it does not arise directly out of the statement which I have made.
I do not think that I can accept the implications of the second part of the question, but I have carefully noted the first part of what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Duthie: Will my right hon. Friend consult the Leader of the House with a view to a day being set aside for the discussion of this very important industry? The only time which has been given to it has been by means of short debates on Motions.

Mr. Hamilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the subsidies which are to be paid under the forthcoming legislation will be given only to those who need them, on the principle enunciated for housing subsidies?

Mr. Maclay: I assume that the hon. Member is as interested as I am in the future of the herring industry in Scotland.

MESSRS. BRIGGS (COURT OF INQUIRY)

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. Iain Macleod): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the dispute at Briggs, Dagenham.
On Friday, 22nd February, my officers met representatives of the Ford Motor Company and of the trade unions, but after discussions lasting some nine hours no settlement was reached.
There were further talks yesterday and on their conclusion I invited both sides to meet me. I informed them of my decision to appoint a Court of Inquiry to examine the causes and circumstances of the dispute. I reminded them of the serious consequences of a stoppage of work at the Briggs plant and urged them to modify the attitudes which they had so far adopted. My officers then had detailed discussions with the parties and an

understanding was reached on a basis for calling off the strike which the President of the Amalgamated Engineering Union agreed to put before his National Executive Council today. I have heard within the last hour that the National Executive Council has accepted the agreed terms and has withdrawn the notice to strike action which was due to take effect tomorrow.
The Court of Inquiry will be held by Lord Cameron, Judge of the Court of Session, Scotland, sitting with assessors, and arrangements have been made for the Court to begin its hearings early next week.
I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of the sense of responsibility which both sides displayed at the meeting at my Ministry yesterday in their efforts to avert a stoppage which would have had the most serious effects upon many thousands of workpeople, on the Company and on the national interest.

Mr. Robens: I am sure that the whole House will join with me in saying how glad we are that there has been a settlement of this dispute. We should like to congratulate all the parties and the Ministry of Labour on the fact that this strike has been averted. There are two points on which the right hon. Gentleman might give us some information: first, could he say what the agreed terms are and, secondly, when he speaks of a Chairman sitting with assessors, does he propose to appoint the assessors or will the parties appoint them?

Mr. Macleod: The agreed terms should, of course, be read as a whole. They will be given to the Press and I will see that they are circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The assessors will be nominated by the parties and not appointed by me.

Mr. Parker: How wide will the scope of the Court of Inquiry be? Will it cover not merely the present dispute, but the disputes which have occurred over the last two or three years?

Mr. Macleod: The Court of Inquiry will be appointed to examine the causes and circumstances of the dispute—that is, the dispute which led to the threatened stoppage of work. The hon. Member will be aware that in cases like this,


particularly where assessors sit, it is quite likely that many matters of much wider interest will be brought forward.

Mr. Lee: The right hon. Gentleman will realise that, from the union point of view, agreeing to go to the Court of Inquiry is quite a concession, in that the basis of the dispute, the sacking of the shop steward, has not yet been resolved. Have the employers given any undertaking that if the Court of Inquiry agrees that their action in dismissing this man was wrong, they will accept that and reinstate him in his position?

Mr. Macleod: I do not think that we should try to peer ahead into that. Both sides have made substantial concessions to reach the settlement which I have announced and which, I feel, is extremely satisfactory.

Following are the agreed terms:
The Company, having in mind assurances which the trade union representatives gave of their best endeavours to secure the proper working of the procedure agreement between the unions and the Company, and in the interests of future good labour relationships, agree to pay to Mr. J. McLoughlin, as from today, a weekly sum equal to his normal standard weekly wages until the report of the Court of Inquiry has been received and conclusions reached on the recommendations of the Court.
The Unions, for their part, agree to withdraw their notice of strike action due to commence on 27th February.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(DISQUALIFICATION OF HOLDERS OF CERTAIN OFFICES AND PLACES.)

3.42 p.m.

The Chairman: The first Amendment on the Notice Paper has been selected and it may be for the convenience of the Committee to discuss with it the four following Amendments and the second in page 657. Mr. Silverman—Mr. Robinson—Mr. Hale—Sir Leslie Plummer—Mr. Paget.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I beg to move, in page 2, line 16, after "Ireland", to insert "Her Majesty's Foreign Service".
This is a drafting Amendment. Its purpose is to make it clear that members of the Foreign Service are to be treated as civil servants of the Crown for the purpose of the general disqualification of civil servants under Clause 1 (1, b) of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir Patrick Spens: I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, to leave out from first "a" to end of line 24 and to insert "full-time constable".
It was intended by the Select Committee which considered the Bill to exclude all part-time special constables. Unfortunately, we did not know what was the right Act to which to refer for Scottish special constables, so, while we have allowed English special constables to stand for the House of Commons, we have, in fact, disqualified Scottish special constables. The Amendment is to put that mistake right.

Amendment agreed to.

The Attorney-General: I beg to move, in page 2, line 26, after "by" to insert:
section two hundred and twenty-five of".
It may be for the convenience of the Committee if, with this Amendment, we discuss the following Amendment.
These are drafting Amendments, the purpose of which is to make it clear that


the Regular Forces to be disqualified by Clause 1 (1, c) are those defined generally in the interpretation Sections of the Army Act and the Air Force Act. It is not intended to disqualify members of the forces who are treated for particular purposes of those Acts as if they were members of the Regular Army, or Regular Air Force. Section 211 of the Army Act, for instance, provides for members of the reserve and auxiliary forces to be treated as members of the Regular Forces when called out, or recalled for whole-time duty.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 27, after "by", insert:
section two hundred and twenty-three of".—[The Attorney-General.]

Clause as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3.—(RESERVE AND AUXILIARY FORCES, ETC.)

Sir P. Spens: I beg to move, in page 3, line 39, at the end to add:
(4) A person is not disqualified under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section one of this Act by reason of his being a member of the Royal Observer Corps unless he is employed as such for the whole of his time.
The Royal Observer Corps is a civilian organisation, under the control of the Secretary of State for Air, and many of its members are civilians. There is a whole-time paid nucleus of civil servants who will be disqualified as such, but the vast majority of the members of the Corps are part-time volunteers and it would be anomalous to disqualify them when part-time members of other voluntary Services are not disqualified. This point was not brought before the Select Committee. If it had been, I feel certain that we should have inserted words such as those in the Amendment.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I wonder whether the Attorney-General will be good enough to tell the Committee whether the expression "member" of the Royal Observer Corps has a technical meaning, or is used in the ordinary sense. One would not want to debar a civilian who happened to be working in a purely civilian capacity with the Royal Observer

Corps. I should have thought that such a person would not be within the scope of the Amendment, always provided that "member" has a technical meaning in the sense that one uses the terms "soldier" or "airman".

The Attorney-General: In the Royal Observer Corps there is a small nucleus of whole-time paid officers who are civil servants and would be disqualified by Clause 1 (1, b), but the vast majority of members are part-time volunteers and it would be anomalous to disqualify them, when part-time members of other voluntary Services are not disqualified by the Bill. The Amendment makes it quite clear that members of the Royal Observer Corps, unless employed as such for the whole of their time, that is to say, unless they come within the category of civil servants, are not disqualified.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4.—(STEWARDSHIP OF CHILTERN HUNDREDS, ETC.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Jack Jones: On a point of order. Can we have some guidance on this matter, Sir Charles? You have called hon. Members in whose names several Amendments have been tabled, but there has been no response, so the Amendments have not been moved. Is it possible that the hon. Members responsible for the Amendments are elsewhere in the House, attending a Standing Committee? Is it possible to send out a search party to find out where they are?

The Chairman: It has been explained to me that the Amendments have been put down without their authority.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Without the authority of whom, Sir Charles?

The Chairman: Without the authority of the Members themselves. One has explained to me that he did not give authority for his name to be put down and he imagined that it was the same for his hon. Friends.

Mr. Ellis Smith: That is very serious.

The Chairman: It has nothing to do with me. They had better find out who was responsible for putting their names to the Amendments. It was certainly not me.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5.—(PROVISION FOR AMENDMENT OF FIRST SCHEDULE.)

Sir P. Spens: I beg to move, in page 4, line 1, to leave out subsections (I) to (3) and to insert:
(1) If at any time it is resolved by the House of Commons that the First Schedule to this Act be amended, whether by the addition or omission of any office or the removal of any office from one Part of the Schedule to another, or by altering the description of any office specified therein, Her Majesty may by Order in Council amend that Schedule accordingly.
This is a much more substantial Amendment. When we considered the scheme of the Bill in the Select Committee we came to the conclusion that if we were to have lists of offices which would disqualify either totally or locally it was clear that they would have to be altered from time to time as new offices might be created; or because some of the offices which we think should disqualify at present might not be so important in the eyes of our successors. We put into the Bill Clause 5, divided into two parts, so that certain alterations in the list could be made under the affirmative Resolution procedure in the House and certain others, not so important, by the negative Resolution procedure. It is rather a long and complicated Clause.
It was then pointed out that we had passed a Clause using the phrase, "office under the Crown" the whole way through. It was pointed out that it might well be that some offices which we might consider incompatible with a seat in this House might not be offices under the Crown; for instance, an official of an area railway board. Under those circumstances, it appeared that the Clause was not quite in the form it ought to be.
The matter has been reconsidered and it has been suggested that I should move this Amendment, which is in a shorter and more elastic form. But the important thing is that every alteration must depend on a Resolution of the House and on the affirmative Resolution procedure.

In that way, the House keeps an adequate control over any alteration of the list.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: I cannot agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens). I agree that this is an Amendment of some importance, but I have several objections to it. First, it would enable the House of Commons, by a Resolution, to override the expressed provisions of a Statute. Where an office comes into existence otherwise than by a Statute I agree that it would be appropriate to deal with it by such machinery as is provided for in the Clause. But where a Statute provides that the office should carry disqualification, or should not, I think it wrong that the House should be able to overrule that provision even on the day after it was passed. There is no difficulty in the case of offices created by Statute. It will be possible hereafter to deal with such offices in the Act which creates them.
The Amendment requires a simple Resolution of the House of Commons only. It leaves out subsection (3) of the present Clause. The Committee will see that under that subsection, if the House has passed a Resolution, an Order in Council can be made giving effect to it and under the subsection it will be open to either House of Parliament to require that the Resolution shall be annulled. In other words, as the Bill is drafted, it is open to either House of Parliament to maintain control over this legislation. Were the Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend adopted, it would leave the matter exclusively to the House of Commons. I submit that that is constitutionally wrong.
As my right hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, Clause 5 refers to "any office under the Crown." Under the original Bill, which was introduced during the last Session, an office under the Crown had to be defined because, of course, there were genera} words in the Bill. There are no general words now and it is not necessary to define that expression. It will be for this House to interpret those words when considering Resolutions under this Clause. Therefore, the words are usefully drawn because they are conveniently wide, but they are not as wide as all that.
I understand that it would be necessary for any office to be at least in the nature


of public employment. But if the words proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend were accepted, any office could disqualify. For example, it would be possible for this House to pass a Resolution to say that no company director might sit as a Member of this House. That Resolution would at once become effective. Or it might be that no trade union secretary could become a Member. I do not think that the House contemplated taking such wide powers as that. I think it essential to retain some words which limit the extremely wide scope of the Bill.
Clause 5 requires some grounds to be given for adding an office to the Schedule or taking one out; that is to say, under the Clause, as drafted, the office must be said to be incompatible or to have ceased to be incompatible. The word "incompatible" is fairly general, but nevertheless, it requires some particular justification to be given. I accept that in time a code will be built up as a result of the series of Resolutions passed under this Clause. That will be used fairly often and when the code is built up the House will be able to see what offices are or are not to be included fairly easily. If no such code is built up, the Clause will haunt not only us but future generations of hon. Members.
No reference to any of this appears in the Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend. So far as the Amendment is concerned, any office can be included in or excluded from the Schedule without any reason being given. I should prefer to see a rather more detailed definition. There certainly should be included some such word as "incompatible". For that reason I do not like the Amendment. The Clause needs some Amendment and there is no Amendment on the Notice Paper dealing with the point. I wish to draw the attention of the Attorney-General to the fact that there is no power in the Clause, as drafted, to alter Part IV of the First Schedule, which is that part dealing with disqualification for particular constituencies, and I think that some such power is desirable. Again, there is no power to transfer between one part of the Schedule and another although that is dealt with by my right hon. and learned Friend's Amendment.

Sir P. Spens: The Amendment states
… whether by the addition or omission of any office or the removal of any office from one Part of the Schedule to another.…

4.0 p.m.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: That is quite true, and with that part of my right hon. and learned Friend's Amendment I agree. I think it will be desirable, therefore, that this Clause should be amended, but I am afraid that is the only part of his Amendment with which I do agree. For these reasons, I hope that the Committee will reject this Amendment, and that it will be possible, at a later stage, to incorporate that one point in another Amendment.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I think it is just as well that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has drawn attention to the constitutional importance of this Clause. At the same time, however, I cannot agree with the argument, although I know that he holds his view very strongly in this matter.
I do not think that there is any possibility of advantage in trying to limit the future discretion of this House by putting in the word "incompatible". If, at any time in the future, this House wants to change the composition of this House of Parliament, it will do so, and it will not be deterred by any words which we choose to put in now, just as in this case we decide in our own contemporary judgment the people who should be excluded from membership of this House. Nor do I feel that the omission of the Upper House from the alteration of the Schedule is a very important matter. I should be very surprised if this Bill comes back to us from another place with any important alteration. Nor do I think it likely that another place would think it appropriate to try to control in some respects the membership of this House.
Therefore, I think myself that the procedure of amendment by Resolution of this House is appropriate as well as convenient, and it seems to me that my hon. Friend, in referring to offices created by Statute, overlooked the main purpose which I think my colleagues in the Select Committee had in mind in suggesting this. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) had it in mind in


moving this Amendment, namely, the inadvertent omission from the Statute of any provision whereby the holder of a new office should or should not be disqualified from membership of this House.
If a Statute were to create new offices and not deal with that question, it would be very inconvenient indeed if we had to go through the whole operation of an amending Bill to alter the Schedule, whereas in any other case we could do it by a simple resolution. Of course, my hon. Friend, in stressing the constitutional aspect, was saying that we could pass an Act one day dealing expressly with whether the holder of a new office should be in or out of the House, and the following day, by Resolution, reverse it. I think he will agree that it is a very academic point. After all, this House had to consent to the Statute, and it is almost unimaginable that it would one day, by Resolution, do the reverse of what it had just decided.
The broad effect is to cover inadvertence, and I think that my hon. Friend, on reflection, might probably feel that it would be illogical to have this Schedule capable of amendment by simple Resolution in every other case, and that only in the case where there was an inadvertence in the Statute, and there only, should we have to go through the whole business of passing a new Statute to meet the case.

Mr. Wigg: At the risk of impertinence, being the only non-lawyer yet to have spoken in the debate, I wonder whether the learned Attorney-General would tell us what this Clause means, what the Amendment means and what the observations of the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), who opposed the Amendment, also mean, because, quite frankly, I do not know. I am not sure that I understood it to start with, and I am quite sure that I do not understand it now.
I want to be a little careful before I assent to anything at all here that will strengthen the Crown or the Executive against the control of the House of Commons. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) may think it more or less tidy to do it by Resolution, as against legislation, but there is a little difference, and, at least, the Attorney-General, if an inadvertence had been committed, would have to come

to the House and explain himself, or endeavour to do so, as on previous occasions, and that seems to me to put the brake on a little.
Perhaps I may be permitted to limit my remarks until we have heard what the Government have to say, and then perhaps I may be able to supplement them at a later stage; but I should be much obliged if we could have explained to us what the Amendment sets out to do.

Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn: I think I agree with the hon. Baronet the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth)—certainly, in the main—but rather more surprisingly perhaps also with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). I ought to understand this better than he can because I sat on the Select Committee, but I have such a capacity for forgetting that I should hate to be cross-examined at this moment.
I cannot believe, although I may be wrong about this, that the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) is right in his explanation to the Committee. He said that this House will not be deterred anyway. If it really is to be argued that if the House had wanted to do something by mere Resolution which this Statute plainly intended to debar, nevertheless the House would not be deterred by that, that again seems to me to be a good argument for giving the House power to do something by mere Resolution, and that—I think I am within the recollection of the Committee—was exactly the indication which was given to us by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South.

Mr. R. Bell: I merely referred to the word "incompatible", to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South had referred. Of course, what is considered incompatible is always a matter of opinion, and I doubt whether anything would be gained by putting it in.

Mr. Pickthorn: It would not matter. My argument would be exactly the same if the hon. Gentleman had referred to "fiddle-de-dee" or anything else. "Incompatible" may be difficult to define, but so is "reasonable," and we are all accustomed to relying in Statutes on the word "reasonable," and, to some extent, to rely on the word "incompatible."
The point is that the intention here should be not excessively to strengthen the power of the House to act by mere Resolution. I feel that every hon. Member must agree about that, and it must be a bad argument to say that, even if a Statute used words plainly intended to have a limiting effect, the House would see the Statute damned first and do as it pleased. That, it seems to me, must be a bad argument, and I think that it has added considerably to the weight of proof which ought now to be discharged from the Treasury Bench if we are to accept the Amendment.
I do not quite understand my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), who moved the Amendment. He used the passive tense very frequently, and that is always apt to lead to difficulties in debate. It was pointed out to us that it has been reconsidered. I am not quite clear who is meant by "us," although I would not hang a dead dog on my memory, and I do not know who "us" were, but not the Select Committee, as far as I know. This has been reconsidered, but by whom has it been reconsidered?
It is now about to be reconsidered by the House of Commons in Committee of the whole House, and I have not yet sufficiently understood it to feel sure that the Amendment is important. I am inclined at present to think that the right line would be to promise reconsideration before a later stage, and to let it be dealt with finally then.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I hesitate to intervene, and merely say that I find the Amendment simpler and more elastic, and, therefore, more suitable, than the Clause. If the House of Commons resolves on a matter of this sort there is no need to preserve the possibility of a negative annulment by either House, or certainly by another place. On a question of this sort, for the House to pass one Resolution is ample. The other argument seemed somewhat unconvincing. I am glad to see the word "incompatible" out when simpler language will suffice.

Mr. Clement Davies: The Committee ought to be very careful not to give power by Order in Council to reverse or alter in any way an Act of

Parliament. It ought to be very reluctant to do so. There was similar power in what is now known as the "Henry VIII Clause", which has fallen into disuse for many years.
I agree with the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) that the Amendment is much too wide in its scope. Look at it. It says:
If at any time it is resolved by the House of Commons that the First Schedule to this Act be amended, whether by the addition or ommission of any office or the removal of any office from one Part of the Schedule to another, or by altering the description of any office specified therein, Her Majesty may by Order in Council amend that Schedule accordingly.
That gives tremendous power and relies upon the vigilance of hon. Members in the House of Commons in regard to Resolutions brought forward without any qualification.
I do not like the words in Clause 5, but they are limited, at any rate. They say that certain matters shall be taken into consideration when the subject is brought before the House of Commons. As the Amendment is much too wide I prefer the Clause as it stands.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. J. E. S. Simon): I must advise the Committee to accept the Amendment for the reasons that have been advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison).
The first merit of the Amendment is that it makes the Clause very much simpler. The Clause proposes two different procedures for Amendment of the Schedule, one depending upon the affirmative Resolution procedure and the other upon the negative Resolution procedure. The Amendment is simpler because it is a single and stronger method of Amendment, in other words, by affirmative Resolution of the House of Commons.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) put forward four objections to the Amendment. The first was that it proposed a simple Resolution to over-ride the express provisions of the Statute. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) rightly drew attention to the constitutional importance of that.
It is a matter which the House of Commons will always regard with care and scrutiny. I am bound to point out that that is already implicit in the Clause as unamended. It is in each case a Resolution of the House of Commons.
The second objection was that it is a Resolution of the House—

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: If my hon. and learned Friend will look at the Clause he will see, in paragraph (a), these words:
that any office under the Crown constituted after the commencement of this Act otherwise than by an enactment of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is incompatible with membership of that House.
In other words, it will apply only to an office constituted under an Act of Parliament.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Simon: It is still an Amendment of that Act of Parliament by a simple Resolution of the House of Commons. In that respect there is no difference between the Amendment and the Clause. In each case it is a Resolution of the House of Commons to override the express provisions of a statute.
The second question is whether it shall be by Resolution of the House of Commons only. I think I am right in saying, in the presence of eminent constitutionalists, that the accepted doctrine is that it is a prerogative of each House of Parliament—and pre-eminently the prerogative of the House of Commons—to determine the qualification of its Members. Therefore, it seems consistent with constitutional propriety that the Resolution should be by the House of Commons in this case, as indeed the Select Committee recommended, as one sees from the existing state of Clause 5 (1).
The third objection was that whereas the Clause refers to
any office under the Crown
the Amendment leaves the matter completely at large. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) gave reasons why the limitation to an office under the Crown was inappropriate. There may be offices which are excluded. He gave the example of an area railway authority. That would not be an office under the Crown, and yet it might very well be that the office should be excluded.
The question arises, whether, if that is inappropriate, one should leave the matter at large. Even if one used the words "public employment" one would not be very much further forward, because the Resolution of the House of Commons would over-ride any such limitation. One comes back, in the end, to depending upon the good sense of the House of Commons in determining what is a proper office to be signified under this procedure.
Lastly, my hon. Friend said that whereas Clause 5 required some ground to be given for adding or taking away an office the Amendment left the matter at large, and he would like to see the word "incompatible" included. The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South, seemed conclusive as to that. The use of the word would not tie a House of Commons. It is very much better to leave the matter to the good sense of the House of Commons which has to determine the matter.
It seems to the Government that the Amendment is an improvement on the Clause. It is very much simpler and more flexible and enables a transfer of offices from one part of one Schedule to another.

Mr. Hector Hughes: The Clause and the Amendment are undesirable and unnecessary, because they tend to take away from the House of Commons the power to alter the law. The House of Commons has an inherent right to alter this Bill at any time. The Clause proposes two ways of amending legislation by Resolutions of the House, after it has been solemnly passed. Both Clause and Amendment are undesirable.

Captain J. A. L. Duncan: I am not an expert on this subject and I was not a member of the Select Committee; but after listening to the discussion, I agree more with the views expressed by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) than anyone else. I cannot see the point either of the Clause or of the Amendment and the Bill would be very much better without either. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will support me when we come to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" we could join together to


divide against it. Problems that arise after the Bill is passed can all be dealt with in the new statutes as they come along.
The other type of case that has to be dealt with is that which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) called "cases of inadvertence". If we look at the Schedule and the astonishing list of people, and at the Amendment to come, which adds more names, I cannot believe that there can still be cases of inadvertence and, if there are, we should take a chance on them. I think that when we do find such a case—if we ever do—it would be very much better to have a new Act rather than to make it too easy, by a simple Resolution of this House, to make alterations which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) says could very well, on a future occasion, make some very grave distinctions which might not be in the interests of the House or of the country.

The Attorney-General: The Committee will recollect that when the first Bill on this subject was introduced it contained the tests that had to be applied to determine what kind of office disqualified for membership of this House. The House then expressed very strongly the view that it was desirable, if possible, to set out in a Schedule the list of the disqualifying offices, and the Select Committee endorsed that view. The result was that the Bill was completely recast by the Select Committee.
The inevitable consequence of having a list of offices is that there must be some provision for alteration of that list as time goes on. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Angus (Captain Duncan) has just said, "Well, why not leave it to the new Statutes, as they come along, to make the alteration?" The short and complete answer to that argument is that not all new offices which the House would regard as disqualifying offices are created by Statute. Therefore, we must have some machinery left to the House to secure that the holder of a particular office, whether or not created by Statute—in particular, to cover the case where it is not created by Statute—can be de-dared by this House as being disqualified from its membership.
That, in my submission to the Committee, is inherent in the structure of the Bill; that we should have some kind of novel—and I admit that it is novel; it may be called Henry VIII, but it is inherent in this system—method of flexible adjustment of the Schedules to the Bill. Clause 5 as it stood gave, it is quite true to say, a limited power of adjustment, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) welcomes the power which is given by my right hon. and learned Friend's Amendment of transferring from one Schedule to another, which did not exist in the Clause as originally drawn.
In my submission to the Committee, my right hon. and learned Friend's Amendment really has not such radical consequences as were suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South. For each case there has to be a Resolution of the House of Commons, and one has only to look at the beginning of Clause 5 (1) as it stands to see that that Resolution starts the matter off. In my belief, it is the only way in which we can leave the House of Commons in control of matters of this kind, which should be in the control of the House of Commons.
If we are to have our lists and our Schedules, the House of Commons should have the power to initiate action, it may be as a check, to secure either that there are additions to Schedules or transfers from the Schedule to another or, in a proper case, to secure that the Schedules are amended by the deletion of something already there. It is with a desire of securing that flexibility and that control by this House—because it is a matter which does intimately concern the House—that we feel that it would be right to advise the Committee to accept the Amendment, which, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has said, is clearer and shorter, and, so far as its practical effect is concerned, limited, in my view, in conferring the power to transfer from one Schedule to another, which does not exist in the subsection as it stands.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Mr. Hector Hughes rose—

The Attorney-General: The hon. and learned Member is about to interrupt, but I will not reply to what he said because I do not honestly think, if he will forgive me for saying so, that he had fully appreciated the effect of Clause 5 (1).

Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the only difference between procedure by Resolution of the House followed by Order in Council and by legislation on this point is the difference of time? The first procedure is more expeditious than the second, and I ask the Attorney-General, why the hurry in so important a matter?

Mr. Pickthorn: I am grateful to the Attorney-General, who, I thought, was very clear, but I should like him to clear up one point which he did not deal with at all, and that is "office". Is the word "office" limited here in any way? It is not enough to say that the House of Commons went off its rocker and excluded chaps because they held office as assistant secretary of a bowls club, because they are relying on the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell), who has knocked that support from under them. We should indicate what "office" does mean.
I should like to say one other thing. Surely we should be more cautious now than I thought twenty minutes ago, because of what the Under-Secretary of State said. He seemed to me to put higher than I think it has ever been put before the right of each House to judge of its membership. I do not think that matter has ever before been put higher than the right of each House to be a court, to do a judicial act in this matter—and that was claimed and asserted by this House on very false grounds, I submit, but we do not want to go back on that, because the House has had it now for generations. Nevertheless, the words which my hon. and learned Friend used seemed to mean that each House was entitled to decide at any moment, by any procedure, how its membership was to be made up, and to legislate on the matter.
I think that that would be a great betrayal of the liberty of the subject. It is all very well to talk about the House being interested in this, but we know very well that when it comes to getting a Resolution passed, "the House" means "the Crown", which means whichever party has a majority in the House. It is highly desirable, therefore, that we should be extremely careful not to enlarge beyond what is necessary—and I entirely

accept the Attorney-General's explanation of what we are trying to do—any kind of claim by this House to legislate for its own membership. The Rump Parliament did that, and the Rump Parliament was treated as it deserved in the end. It took too long.

The Attorney-General: I am substantially in agreement with what my hon. Friend has said, but I would say to him that once we insert in the Clause the words "under the Crown" we are getting back into that field which has given us so much trouble in the past. If we limit "office" to "office under the Crown" in this context, we then really have to go on to consider whether it is, in fact, in law, an office under the Crown, although there could be common agreement between all Members of this House, and the public outside, that the office is of such a character that its holder should be disqualified from membership of the House. An example which occurs to me straight away is that of the Chairman of the British Transport Commission. I do not think that could, be properly regarded as an office under the Crown. Many other examples could be taken.

Mr. Ede: Inspectors of boards.

4.30 p.m.

The Attorney-General: That is another example. The Chairman of the British Transport Commission, although not holding an office under the Crown, holds an office the tenure of which this House and people of the country would regard as incompatible with membership of this House. I think it right that we should give very careful consideration to this subsection because I do not think anyone wants the House to have wider powers of amendment or alteration than are absolutely essential. At the same time, I think the Committee requires to see that the House as far as possible should have control over this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Pickthorn) said that in these days so much depends upon whether the Government have a particular view of a particular office. That may or may not be the case, but I venture to think that if the opinion of hon. Members was that tenure of a certain office was incompatible with membership, most Governments would feel compelled to give way to that


feeling on what really is a House of Commons matter.
I apologise to my hon. Friend for not dealing with the point about "under the Crown" when I spoke earlier. There is a valid reason for leaving those words out and not fettering the power of this House in that respect, while we must rely on this House and its successors exercising wide discretion in adding to, or altering, or taking from the contents of the various Schedules.

Mr. Wigg: The Attorney-General has convinced me three times over. Having convinced me thrice, he has left just a slight element of doubt in my mind. That is because of the convincing way in which he announced his conversion to the great radical principle of the control of the House of Commons over its membership and its affairs. I am going to test the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If he will be good enough to say that the question of this Bill is a House of Commons matter, and exclusively a House of Commons matter, not a matter for the imposition of the opinion of the Government—in other words, that all the Amendments appearing on the Notice Paper today are to be left to a free vote—I will believe him. If he cannot give me that assurance I shall not believe him.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman seized upon a radical instinct of every hon. Member. Many hon. Members opposite whom one would not suspect of having that feeling do feel that way. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman seized on that argument, I wish to pry a little into the history of this Amendment. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), for whom I have the greatest respect, moved it and I thought that I understood the Amendment. Then we heard the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), and I was quite sure that I did not understand a single word of it. Then we had the Under-Secretary, the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon), who spoke with great clarity. If ever I am charged before the courts, and I am innocent, I shall employ him. He laid the facts out, but I was a little suspicious because of the alacrity with which he accepted the Amendment in the name of his right hon. and learned

Friend the Member for Kensington, South.
That made me think for a moment that that Amendment did not appear on the Notice Paper quite by accident. The right hon. and learned Member had performed a very important function on behalf of the Government in putting that Amendment down—why? I quite agree that it is highly desirable that the House should have control over its membership and, therefore, if at any time the Schedules have to be altered that would be better done by Order in Council, although I am suspicious of any more accession of power either to the Crown or to the Executive, which for this purpose, as has been argued, is one and the same.
For the life of me I cannot see why the Government did not spot this earlier and particularly why the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South did not spot it. He was Chairman of the Select Committee and this Bill has been in existence for a long time. Why, at this late stage, are we faced with this Amendment, which clearly does something I should like to see happen and yet, for some reason which I do not think we have yet been told, avoids the inconvenience which might come to the Government if they had to ask the House for legislation as opposed to the simple procedure of a Resolution?
What I think has happened is that the great radical principle of which the Attorney-General has been convinced this afternoon, like Paul on the road to Damascus, had its origin, not in the conversion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to radical principles, but in the Whips' Office. The Patronage Secretary looked at this question and said, "Heigh-ho, these might be a string of these cases. What happens to our timetable then? This Bill had its origin late on a Friday afternoon. It has taken a little time since then and might be another time waster." If I had anything to do with it that would be so, because it seems the function of a back bencher to control the Executive.
I therefore make this offer to the Attorney-General. I will go shoulder to shoulder to the Division Lobby with him on one side and with the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West on the other side—as an escort—if the Attorney-General will say that his conversion to


these great radical principles is not one of expediency but a determination that membership of the House of Commons and control by a Bill like this should not rest with the Executive but on a free vote.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has persuaded me that the original Clause needs more amendment than I first thought, but he has not altogether persuaded me that this Amendment is the Amendment we require. He seemed to think that we shall deal with these cases in future each singly and on its merits, without regard to the generality of other similar cases which we are considering. In fact, of course, we shall consider a whole series of these cases. Each will tend to be judged in relation to our decisions on the other cases.
My right hon. and learned Friend picked out the case of the Chairman of the Transport Commission. Having taken the Chairman, we might then take the Vice-Chairman, then the Deputy Chairmen, then any director, and so on, down the line, until, in time, we should find that we precluded from membership of this House anyone employed by the Transport Commission. We would not get that situation if we had some limiting words because we should reach a point at which the Executive would say, "That would be going beyond the spirit of the Statute." My right hon. and learned Friend knows perfectly well that a Government are never willing to go beyond what they deem themselves authorised to do by an Act.
In this case, there would be no such limit and the practice would always tend in the direction of adding cases. At the moment there is a clear decision that we ought to exclude the senior executives of nationalised industries. As they are excluded there will be no one in this House to speak for them and, therefore, there will always be a tendency to keep out the next lot. I believe that taking off these limits would, in the long run, add very greatly to the disqualifications. That would be an unfortunate tendency.
I am not at all happy about this Clause. I do not like either proposal. The Amendment will probably be carried, but I hope that the Government will reconsider the matter and, on Report, table an Amendment to cover the objec-

tions which have been raised in all parts of the Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Simon: I beg to move, in page 4, line 29, to leave out from the beginning to "be" in line 31, and to insert:
Upon the coming into operation of an Order in Council under this section, a copy of the First Schedule to this Act as amended (whether by Order in Council under this section or otherwise) shall".
The Amendment is not of the same constitutional interest as the last one. It is only a drafting Amendment. Clause 5 (4) requires the Clerk of the Parliaments to prepare for reprinting by the Queen's Printer copies of the First Schedule as amended by Orders in Council under the Clause.
The Amendment is designed to secure that when the Act is reprinted from time to time the First Schedule shall be reprinted as amended not only by any Order in Council which has been made under the Clause, but also by any legislation of the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland Parliaments. In other words, the intention is that it shall be kept currently up to date whenever it is reprinted. The Schedule may, of course, be amended by legislation abolishing old offices or setting up new ones or altering the names of offices specified in the Schedule. Therefore, it is desirable that each reprint of the Act should embrace all the Amendments to the First Schedule made up to the date of reprinting.

Mr. Mitchison: We have no objection to the proposal in principle—the Amendment is, indeed, drafting—but there is one small point at which I should like the Government to look. Some of the Orders in Council may be operative in the future. Indeed, the Bill is, to some extent, operative in the future. The date given is that for the coming into operation of an Order in Council. It seems to me that the right date would be that when the Order is made, if necessary with a note of the date upon which it comes into operation. While I agree that hon. Members who consult the rolls of Parliament are few and far between, this is nevertheless the date which determines the printing of the Schedule, and for that reason it has some practical importance.

Mr. Simon: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman and will certainly


look at the matter before the Report stage.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7.—(JURISDICTION OF PRIVY COUNCIL, AS TO DISQUALIFICATION.)

Mr. Simon: I beg to move, in page 6, line 1, to leave out from "direct" to "to" and to insert "the issue".
Might we, Mr. Blackburn, take with this the next Amendment, for it will be convenient to do so?

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. F. Blackburn): Yes.

Mr. Simon: These are drafting Amendments. The issue which the Privy Council should direct to be tried is the issue of fact referred to in line 43, in page 5:
For the purpose of determining any issue of fact arising on art application.…
The Amendments secure that result.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 6, line 9, leave out "upon any such issue".—[Mr. Simon.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 8 and 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10.—(RESTRICTION OF CERTAIN ENACTMENTS, ETC., AUTHORISING PAYMENT OF ALLOWANCES.)

4.45 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

The Attorney-General: I suggest to the Committee that, the Bill having been recast, this Clause now serves no useful purpose, and should be deleted.
As originally introduced, the Bill disqualified the holder of any paid office or place under the Crown. That provision was most elaborately defined in the Third Schedule to the Bill. If one was defining a paid office or place under the Crown, it was necessary to define what kind of remuneration should operate to make it constitute a paid office. We have had under the existing law a number of cases where the problem arose in relation to

remuneration, or payment of compensation, as it is usually described, for loss of earnings or remuneration as distinct from payment for expenses incurred.
I think that until now the view has always been taken that, whereas the payment of expenses did not make it an office of profit, payment of compensation for loss of remuneration was really payment of remuneration and, therefore, made it an office of profit. That was the position in the most recent case the House had to consider, that of Mr. Beattie. It was, therefore, very necessary that some provision should be inserted in the original Bill dealing with the problem of definition as to what should count as payment.
That Bill having been transformed into the present Measure, where the disqualification is achieved by means not of a definition but of naming a list of offices, the provision is no longer necessary. It is out of place in the Bill, in fact. It does not make any difference to the disqualification or otherwise a Member whether or not the Clause as such is complied with, and it is because it does not really fit in that I am asking the Committee to consider whether it should be retained.
I am fully aware that, when the matter was considered by the Select Committee, the provision was put in the Bill as a result of a Division. I suspect that it came in as a relic of the old school of thought that it was necessary to define when payment of expenses did not constitute remuneration and to put a limit on the payment that could be made to Members of Parliament.
I would point out to the Committee, also, that there is really no sanction imposed in this Clause. If subsection (2) is not complied with, and if more is paid than the appropriate scale or rate of expenses, all that can happen is that the Comptroller and Auditor General, presumably, will draw attention to it and the Member will be asked to repay. It has no effect upon his qualification as a Member of the House of Commons.
For those reasons, after further consideration, I suggest that the Bill would be better if the Clause were omitted.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I appreciate what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, that the Clause does not appear to be altogether appropriate to the Bill. It was appropriate to the other Bill, and it


is still to this extent appropriate, that the subject-matter of the Clause is being affected by the passing of this Bill, that is to say, until the Bill becomes law there is a limit on what can be paid to Members by way of allowances. When the Bill becomes law, I think I am right in saying, the limit will be removed altogether. I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to tell the Committee whether I am right about that, that is to say, whether, if such a Clause is not put in, there will be no limit whatsoever to the amount which can be paid to Members of the House of Commons at the will of the Government by way of allowances.
If that is the position, I should regard it as somewhat undesirable. It seems to me that it would open the door to the possibility of undesirable things being done. It is quite true, of course, that present-day Governments do not, as a rule, abuse their power of patronage, but that does not mean that we ought to open wide the means by which any Government at some future date, in circumstances at which we cannot guess, would be able to exercise very great power of patronage without any possibility, under the law, of their being stopped.
Therefore, while agreeing with my right hon. and learned Friend, I do feel that something should be done to ensure that this power is limited and cannot in the future be abused. I am not certain where it ought to be done, and the Attorney-General did not make any suggestion. He ought at any rate to give a firm assurance that the substance of the Clause represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and I hope that he will give a further assurance, that in the appropriate place and at the appropriate time some amendment of the law will be made to ensure that we are back again where we have been in this respect, which, in this one instance, I think, is right.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: For my part, I am very glad that the Attorney-General seeks to delete this Clause from the Bill. I am reminded, by reference to the Report of the Select Committee, that it was the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and myself who were in a minority of two on the Select Committee in taking the view that this was an undesirable Clause,

whereas the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) and the majority of Members on both sides of the Committee, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), were of the opinion that the Clause ought to stand part of the Bill.
As the hon. Member for Hendon, South has pointed out, this is a most important matter which affects every Member of the House of Commons and, to that extent, affects the relationship between the Government of the day and all Members of the House. I took the view in Select Committee, and I take the view today, that it is inappropriate to have this Clause in the Bill. Moreover, I consider that it would be an indignity towards Members of Parliament to have the Clause, because what it seems to do, according to its present terms as I understand them, is to lay down that if Members of Parliament are engaged on visits or travel, there is a limit on the amounts for expenses which they should be paid.
No one, I think, pretends that Members of Parliament are overpaid, but it seems to me to be quite unnecessary and undesirable to provide by Statute that the allowance payable to Members of Parliament who may be engaged upon important duties either in this country or overseas should be restricted by Statute to a rate not exceeding
the highest rate fixed by the Treasury in relation to expenses of persons in the civil service.
I do not regard that as an appropriate criterion in any circumstances. Members of Parliament go abroad for a variety of purposes, sometimes directly on behalf of the Government, sometimes partly at the invitation of foreign Governments, sometimes on visits by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and sometimes—indeed, very often—as Members of Select Committees.
When Members go officially on such visits on the business of Parliament, it is undesirable, it seems to me, that the Government of the day should be able to lay down any limit on what those Members think is necessary for them to spend.

Mr. Percy Daines: The Treasury lays it down.

Mr. Fletcher: It is undesirable that the Treasury, which is the Department of the Government concerned, should be able to say to Members of Select Committees going abroad, "You have got this job to do on behalf of the House of Commons, but you can spend only so much in travel or so much on entertaining. If you spend more than that, you may perhaps risk losing your seat in the House because there is a provision in the House of Commons Disqualification Act about it."
I appreciate that the Attorney-General has said that there is no sanction, but I do not agree. There may not be any sanction written in the Bill, but surely the Attorney-General knows as well as I do that if this Clause passes in this form, it will, in effect, become common practice for the limit laid down in the Bill to operate. I think that that is undesirable, and neither the Treasury nor the Member concerned would be a consenting party for a moment to any departure from the limits laid down in this Clause.
I do not believe that there is any possibility whatever of abuse in this respect if the Clause is omitted. What was it that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon, South suggested? As I understood, he was suggesting that without this Clause the Government of the day might try and exert undue pressure on a Member of Parliament by offering him some financial consideration, which could be construed only as a bribe, if he went abroad on behalf of the Government.
In my judgment, it is almost an insult to Members of the House of Commons to think that any one of them is capable of being deflected from his judgment in his conduct as an hon. Member of the House of Commons because of an offer by the Government to pay him a rate of travelling expenses when visiting abroad which might be higher than that paid to a civil servant. In my view, it would be contrary to the dignity of the House for this Clause to remain.

Mr. Wigg: Because the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has talked tommy-rot, that is no reason why my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) should follow his example. If I understood the Attorney-General aright in his very lucid

explanation, it does not make much difference whether the Clause is in or not. If an hon. Member—

ROYAL ASSENT

Whereupon, The GENTLEMAN-USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:
1. Consolidated Fund Act, 1957.
2. Commonwealth Settlement Act, 1957.
3. Transport (Railway Finances) Act, 1957.

HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION BILL

Again considered in Committee.

[Mr. F. BLACKBURN in the Chair]

Question again proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: Before the House went to another place I was thanking the Attorney-General, in Committee, for his kind and lucid explanation of the matter in hand. I gathered from him that it did not matter very much whether Clause 10 remained in the Bill or was deleted, for the last word was with the Treasury. Here I find myself at variance with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East, for if the last word is with the Treasury, and I believe that the Attorney-General's statement is right, hon. Members are at the mercy of the Treasury when they go abroad on public business. I quarrel not with whether the Clause should be in the Bill or not, but with whether the Treasury should have this kind of control over the activity and the proceedings of the House.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I explained that hon. Members are at the mercy of the Treasury today.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I entirely agree, but that fact is not altered by the question whether the Clause is in the Bill or not. Had I not been a close student of the proceedings of the Select Committee, I would have thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East had not understood the point, because his fulminations and almost violent language directed against the hon. Member for Hendon, South led one to suppose that if the Clause were omitted all would be well. But it does not matter whether the Clause stays or goes.
I think that the Committee ought to require an assurance from the Attorney-General, in response to the Committee's agreeing to the deletion of the Clause, that between now and the Report stage he will consult with the Prime Minister so that the future scale of allowances for hon. Members shall be determined by the Speaker of the House of Commons and submitted to the House for its approval. I am shocked that the Atorney-General, whom I really thought was an honest convert to the principle of the House having control, would not respond to my honest and sincere invitation to allow these matters to be tested by the free vote of the House. I am afraid that he is going to backslide still more, because he keeps his head down. It seems to me that he cannot look me straight in the eye on this matter, and I doubt very much whether he will do what I ask of him.
I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give serious consideration to the question whether it would not be in accord with the dignity of the House of Commons that it should be determined, not by the Treasury—and by a junior miss at the Treasury, because if there are any junior misses at the Treasury I think that they are all at the top—but by Mr. Speaker, in consultation with senior Members on both sides of the House and should be decided by a Resolution. If this is done, we can say goodbye to the Clause, because the House of Commons will have real and effective control. If an hon. Member breaks the rule, he knows the consequences. Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that the very efficient accounting system employed by the House would allow the rule to be broken.
Surely it is far better that when hon. Members travel abroad on public affairs they should look for payment of their expenses not to a public Department but to the House of Commons. Let the Attorney-General have his way. It will please him. It will not upset us. The quid pro quo is that he should see whether my suggestion can be brought into operation. If it is brought into operation, it will be one more step in the right direction. I am sure that the Attorney-General by that one action would do a great service to the House.

Mr. Ede: As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) pointed out, I voted in the Select Committee for the Clause being inserted in the Bill. I assure him that in voting for it I did not think that if it were carried by the House of Commons it would reimburse hon. Members for expenses incurred when they were absent from the country on the business of the House. That problem occupied no small part of our discussion, because the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), and the hon. Member for Carlton (Mr. Pickthorn) and myself had just returned from a very unremunerative visit to Malta for the Round Table Conference, and we spent some time ventilating our grievances to the other members of the Select Committee. Therefore, I want the Committee to understand that it was not without some knowledge of the practical working of the existing rules that we reached our decision.
The discussion that we have had so far today amply justifies our having put the Clause in the Bill. I have been rather interested in the varying standard of admiration which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has exhibited from time to time today for the Attorney-General. I think that my hon. Friend has indicated a way in which a better Clause than this could be framed. It is necessary that there should be some rule in this matter. Anyone who has served on a local authority knows that certain insinuations are sometimes made against certain members who are willing to go on delegations.
I have heard it suggested that a member of a local authority will try to be


on three deputations simultaneously for three different bodies, and manage to claim expenses from all three. That is the kind of insinuation against public persons that it ought not to be possible to make, for it lowers and degrades the holding of public office for everybody who happens to be in office. I should not like to see left entirely open the question of what should be a Member's legitimate expenses which can be charged against the Vote concerned.
We virtually adopted the existing rules and we put them into the Bill, smarting as some of us were, under the feeling that we had a legitimate grievance against them. I think that the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley would be a good way out, namely, that there should be an arrangement by which this kind of matter should be settled by rules to be formulated after appropriate consultation by Mr. Speaker and, if necessary—in fact it might be essential—accepted by the House.
Whether that should be included in this Bill or another is no great concern of mine at the moment. I am willing to be guided by the plethora of lawyers we have who are interested in this matter as to what should be the appropriate Measure authorising such scales, but I should not like to leave the matter entirely at large. Without going so far as to agree with the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) that such a freedom might be used in future as a form of corruption. I think it is desirable that there should be a plain answer capable of being given to the question, when a person is sent anywhere on the business of this House, exactly what will be paid to him in respect of the expenses which he has to incur? I think that the public are entitled to know that, and I think that hon. Members are themselves entitled to be protected from insinuations that somehow or other this is a good way of getting a holiday.
Just before Christmas I spent six weeks in America. I tremble to think how much I should have been out of pocket on the scale prescribed by this Bill. Fortunately I was not there on the business of the House but for another body which undertook to pay all my bills. Somehow or other one hotel proprietor

in America thought that he had to send the bill to me and not to the people who were arranging my tour. When I saw the size of the bill, I was amazed, since it was for a person who consumes no intoxicating liquor and "stands treat" to nobody under such circumstances, and who does not have cigars for himself or for his pals put on the bill. I told myself that if an hon. Member were to be sent either to the United States or Canada under the existing arrangements, we should have to look among the wealthiest Members of the House to find anyone who could undertake the job.
I am quite unrepentant about the Clause going into the Bill because I believe in the essential principle that there should be some arrangement. If we could have an assurance from the Attorney-General that the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley will be considered with a view to embodying something on those lines at a later stage of the Bill, or an assurance that another Bill will be introduced to carry out that suggestion if it is deemed inappropriate for this Bill, I should see the Clause disappear without any very grave misgivings.

The Attorney-General: I have listened with interest to this debate, which has largely been concerned with the extent of the allowances given for expenses. I should like to bring the attention of the Committee back to what I submit is the real consideration here, namely, whether this Clause serves any useful purpose in a Bill dealing with disqualification.
Views may differ greatly as to what would be the right machinery for fixing the allowances paid to Members of Parliament to perform their duties. I am sure that the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) would not expect me to be able to say that later in this Bill, dealing with disqualification, we would seek to include a Clause dealing with that matter. I cannot give that assurance because I do not think that this Bill would be the right place for it. Nor do I think that the right hon. Gentleman would expect me to be in a position now to say that the Government would introduce a Bill dealing with this matter. Listening to the argument I can see considerable difficulties in dealing with it, because the scale would have to


differ according to the journey. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the cost of travelling in the United States. Different allowances would have to be given for different journeys.
I will, however, draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to all that has been said on the question of allowances. I am sure that the Committee will appreciate that in relation to a Bill dealing solely with disqualification I cannot give a pledge of the kind requested by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who so far has been so pleasant to me today, although I fear that his mood will change a little later.

Mr. Leslie Hale: The issues that have been raised in the speeches so far are somewhat diverse, and, as the Attorney-General has said, not all of them are directly concerned with the relevance of whether the Clause should be inserted or whether it should be withdrawn, but they arose under consideration of the Clause, and under consideration of whether this is the right Clause at this stage to be in the Measure.
May I, Mr. Blackburn, venture to say one sentence that may not be technically in order, and to apologise if a notification was not received by the Chair of my intention not to move my Amendments to Clause 1? I will apologise for that, although it is not my responsibility, as one of the persons to whom guilt has been imputed.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. The hon. Member has got in his apology, but he might leave it at that.

Mr. Hale: I am obliged, Mr. Blackburn, and I will not make any comment on the unfortunate observation made in my absence by an hon. Member who is not often here, certainly not as often as I am. I was, however, within the precincts of the House, interviewing a constituent. Also I was here for some considerable time during the business, unlike the hon. Member who made the observation.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. Would the hon. Member now come to Clause 10?

Mr. Hale: I had come to it, Mr. Blackburn, but as you have raised the matter

as one of order, I would say that there is an inherent tradition in this House, always recognised, that if a personal attack has been made on an hon. Member without notice, and in his absence, he should reply to it the first moment he rises to his feet, and that is a right I have exercised.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I thought I had given the hon. Member an opportunity to make that apology and explanation.

Mr. Hale: It was accompanied, unfortunately, by an observation from the Chair which could be understood as implying that the opportunity had been somewhat reluctantly conceded, had been speedily abbreviated—and speedily abbreviated because the Chair was then under the impression that it should not have been made.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. The hon. Member will be aware that there are times at which explanations should be made. I do not think Clause 10 is one of them.

Mr. Hale: May I then submit to you, Mr. Blackburn, in defence of the rules of the House, that I was informed a few minutes ago that an attack had been made upon me in my absence, without notice. Therefore, in rising to my feet I sought the leave of the Chair to make a very brief reply to that. I replied to it in one sentence.

5.30 p.m.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Member will be aware that the correct time to make a personal explanation is at the end of Questions and not on Clause 10 of this Bill.

Mr. Hale: I was not aware of that. I will accept your Ruling, Mr. Blackburn. It applies, of course, to the formal explanation where a matter of gravity is involved. I have been eleven years in this House, and time after time I have heard Members in the course of debate refer to some purely personal matters that had occurred in a previous part of the debate.
Having dealt with that, I will now come to the speech of the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) which appeared to me to raise issues of


very grave importance. He said that we had to be extremely careful that the Government should not have it in their power to give patronage to Members of the House of Commons. He said that this was a matter to which the House ought to have due regard. Anyone listening to those sentences in vacuo would be rather anxious to agree with them. It is well in accord with the traditions of this House that the Government should not be able to give patronage to individual Members, but that. of course, is not in accordance with the practice of the House. Patronage is given by Governments to individuals constantly and always has been from almost time immemorial. Indeed, in the early days of Fox and Pitt the issue of patronage was one of the principal duties of Government and its distribution one of the principal responsibilities of Ministers.
I recall that when an Irish Member came here from a Parliament which was no less corrupt—but he was an honest Irishman—and when Pitt asked where he could be met, he said, "Within pistol shot of the Treasury Bench." That expressed rather more forcefully the view which the hon. Member for Hendon, South put a few moments ago.
The difficulty in considering this Clause is that for humble, obscure Members like myself it is undesirable to give patronage, but if I had money to turn myself into a limited company it would be perfectly all right. I could own 99 per cent. of the shares. I could do all the voting. I could make my wife the second director, and then I could enter into enormous contracts with the Government. I could go into industry on a very large scale and no questions would be raised. A limited liability company, in the curious theory of this House, seems hardly to exist from the point of view of any questions of disqualification or questions of patronage.
The hon. Member for Hendon, South, in the extremely important observations which he made, raised another question. It is a serious question which the Committee ought to consider before it decides to withdraw the Clause. That is the question of the extent of the power of patronage that is exercised, by whom it is exercised, by whom it is directed, and so on.
It has not been my good fortune to be the recipient of anything in the form of patronage. From time to time I have

pointed out that when the selection of people for these various excursions is made, they seem almost entirely to fall upon Members of the House who make the decisions. We have static Members and peripatetic Members. I am one of the static Members. Perhaps it is a tribute to my bulk and lack of speed and mobility that I do not have these opportunities.
In my early days I was invited by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to go on a most attractive trip in 1946. I was then told that, by some curious decision of the Government, a very distinguished man was going and he should be balanced by one of equal distinction from the Opposition. I was asked to stand down, and made no complaint. I was told that my claims would be recognised almost immediately, but they still remain unrecognised after eleven years. Three years ago I wrote and said that I would not expose myself to the humiliation of other refusals. I send this letter every time, so I have not suffered from patronage.

Mr. Wigg: If my hon. Friend in fact wants to exempt himself from the patronage of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or the Inter-Parliamentary Union, why does he not do as I do and refuse to subscribe to either organisation? Then he will never be asked.

Mr. Hale: That is quite true. But I think that it is the duty of hon. Members to be members of organisations of that kind, and to see about reforming them a little. That is one of the objectives that I have in mind, but not one of my first priorities.
I should like to put this situation as it really is. Once, by chance, I found myself on a foreign trip. It was not that I had been selected to go on it. It was one of my hon. Friends who had been selected, but he found that he could not make the trip after he had paid for the tickets, and he asked me if I would take them over. For the first time I found myself travelling abroad and entitled to an allowance. This was a trip on which one paid one's own fare and received an allowance towards expenses. I was there as an indistinguished member of a very distinguished Parliamentary delegation. Our allowances were such that we were not able to afford any hospitality to the


people who were there. This was an Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting at which there was a most distinguished American delegation led by Senator Kefauver. We had the honour to be invited to his hotel and provided with hospitality which we were quite unable to reciprocate.
I think it right that when we are discussing expenses the public should know just what does happen and that anyone who goes on these trips nevelt comes back with any money, although it is almost impossible not to spend money. So we had a meeting of Members to see what we could do about it and whether we could not provide some hospitality in return. We were in this difficulty, not so much that we could not out of our own pockets get the money together, but that we had to get it in francs. If I paid francs out of my own pocket, in those days when the allowance was £50, it would have meant sacrificing my holiday with my wife because I was spending, not so much the money, but an allowance, upon that purpose.
There was a delegation from the Philippines. Its members were staying in one of the largest hotels in Berne. We were stuck in a small pub on the outside. That was the situation. Who fixed that? Gentlemen from the Treasury whom none of us know. They are not susceptible, so far as I know, to any but written suggestions. They are civil servants under the control of this House who say, "This is the allowance for Members of Parliament and this is the allowance for civil servants." The civil servants' allowance is higher than that for Members of Parliament, and I think that the officers of this House get an allowance which is much higher than that accorded to Members of Parliament. This is the very unfortunate situation in which Members who have gone abroad with a duty and a responsibility to represent this country, to partake in discussions and to attend evening meetings, are being placed. It seems, therefore, that we all ought to be indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) for having forcefully described a situation which is really becoming a disgrace.
I now come to the fuller question. The hon. Member for Hendon, South, if I

understood him rightly, was saying that supposing there is a gathering of people—a committee gathered together to serve the community in some capacity—and supposing there is a flat rate of expenses allowance which is permissible, very few people will ever say that these expenses allowances are adequate. My right hon. Friend was a little surprised when he got his hotel bill in America, but if he saw a businessman's expenses account he would see a document which would, I think, make him realise that there was a provision for the rich which was never made for the poor Member of Parliament.
I understood the hon. Member for Hendon, South to be saying that supposing there are exceptional expenses incurred and application is made by members of the delegation for them, they can be paid to civil servants and to nonmembers, but they cannot be paid to hon. Members. I understood the Attorney-General to say that in those circumstances the hon. Member would not be disqualified, but would merely be asked to pay back the money. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman know how many Members of Parliament at this moment are really worried in the last week of the month and waiting for their cheque to come? Does he know how many Members of Parliament are at this moment having great difficulty in paying their bills? If he knew how many Members of Parliament are borrowing money on their insurance policies, and so on, he would not speak so lightly about the demand for the repayment of expenses. The Government have treated Members of Parliament abominably and deplorably.
I do not want to say any more about this. I almost prefer that we should go on until a new Government come in, when we could reform the whole question of the rules of the House, provide for the House to sit at reasonable hours and provide for a disqualification unless people are prepared to take their part in the affairs and conduct of the House.
In the meantime, we have to consider this very curious situation that the Clause was inserted by an overwhelming majority of the Select Committee and that the Government now come along and say that they have second thoughts. I am in favour of the present Government having second thoughts. Their first thoughts


have nearly always been wrong. There is a great deal to be said for second thoughts.
As I have indicated, I have rather mixed feelings on this subject. I have no very special objection at the moment to the Clause being deleted. If my right hon. Friend decided to ask for a Division, I should support him because I do not feel very strongly one way or the other and I would not disagree with the views of the Select Committee, which we are following. However, I hardly think the issue is worth a Division. I am grateful to the Attorney-General for giving the undertaking which he did, which we accept is as far as he can go at this stage, having been confronted with a question which did not arise out of the Clause and is, anyway, ancillary.

Mr. Daines: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) because of an experience that I had, a number of years ago I admit, when I was the chairman of a delegation. The allowances were laid down by the Treasury. It was an official Parliamentary delegation, and not an I.P.U. one.
We found in Paris that the allowance given to us was not sufficient to pay for one meal. The second morning we were there I was faced with a situation that I had a strike on my hands. Among the hon. Members who led it is one who is now a distinguished ornament of the Government. I confess that I never dreamt that I should have to be the peacemaker in a strike led by a Conservative. It was humiliating and disgraceful that we all had to go round and negotiate with the proprietor of a cheap restaurant to let us have a meal at something below the usual price.
That all arose from the situation in which we are often placed, in that we are dictated to by the Treasury, and very often by junior officials. It is not only a question of dignity. There is a serious question of principle as to whether Members of Parliament should have terms dictated to them by officials of the Government, even if they are civil servants.
I strongly support my hon. Friend's plea that we should have laid down from time to time a proper scale of allowances in respect of different countries according to the way in which currency alters. All

hon. Members ought to know what they can get. What I object to most strongly is that even now unless one keeps on searching and prodding one never really finds out what one is entitled to. I served on one official delegation for twelve months before I found that I could charge A, B or C, and then I found oat that other hon. Members who apparently knew the ropes could go to a hotel for bed and breakfast at about 4,000 francs while I was having to pay 1,000 francs a night.
That sort of thing is wrong. When they are engaged on the official business of the House, everybody should know what they are entitled to. The Committee owes a debt to my hon. Friend for raising the matter. I hope that we shall not take this matter lightly. It is not merely an irritation; it is something which is wrong in principle. There is nothing to which I object more than being told by a junior official of the Treasury what I have got to do. I would accept it from the House, but it is wrong for us to be placed in the position that we have to accept what is virtually the dictate of a civil servant.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. C. Davies: I also wish to thank the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) for raising this subject. It is a very good thing that the debate has taken place. It is true, as the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said, that we debated the subject very fully after we had recently had the experience of being asked to go on Government business to Malta, and we were thus able to explain to the other Members of the Select Committee exactly what our position was. It was undoubtedly for that reason that the majority of us voted for the inclusion of the Clause. At the moment I do not think that it is vital Whether it is retained or not.
What is important is that this subject should have been raised, as it has been by hon. Members. At the moment we are in a most unsatisfactory position. I can vouch for what has been said by hon. Members speaking from their personal experience, because I have had the honour of being the treasurer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Committee since 1945. Those hon. Members have been doing a service on behalf of Parliament in an institution which was formed by Members


of the House, and they are worse provided for than the members of any other Parliament who attend the annual conference of that body or even than those who go on behalf of the House to visit other countries from time to time.
Until recently—it is as well that this should be known—the only amount that I as treasurer was allowed to give to Members was their fare, and it was not even the full fare but only half fare. What was the result? We had to go round asking who were willing to go and to pay the full amount out of their own pockets so that we might assist those who ought to go but could not otherwise have gone because they could not afford it. That is an absolutely wrong state of affairs.
I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley that it is high time that this matter was inquired into and that a regular form was settled. The allowance will, of course, have to vary according to the level of expenses likely to be incurred in various countries. It could easily be properly arranged, and it should be subject to being placed before Mr. Speaker, who would act on behalf of the whole House. The hon. Gentleman has done a service to hon. Members, and also to the public, in that the public may know that hon. Members are not getting something which is unfair but have really been unfairly treated under the present system.

Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, put and negatived.

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12.—(AMENDMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS RULES.)

Mr. Simon: I beg to move, in page 8, line 3, to leave out from the first "the" to "addition" in line 5.
This Amendment and the following Amendment are matters of drafting. Clause 12 inserts a new paragraph into Rule 9 of the Parliamentary Elections Rules which are embodied in the Second Schedule to the Representation of the People Act, 1949. There is no need to provide, as the Clause does as it stands, for the numbering of the paragraphs of the Rule. That will be done automatically by the printer when the 1949 Act is reprinted in other words, in any new edition of the revised Statute.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 8, line 5, leave out "that Rule" and insert:
rule 9 of the Parliamentary Elections Rules".—[Mr. Simon.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Ede: When the Select Committee was dealing with this matter I was anxious that at the time of nomination, or just before, the candidate should have his attention specifically directed to those offices which disqualify. We did not manage to get that provision into the Bill, but without exception every member of the Committee was anxious that that should be done. I do not know whether the Government have considered what steps they will take to put that into practical operation.
It will be quite simple in future, if the candidate peruses the list, to know whether he is disqualified. In the cases which have arisen in the last three Parliaments, hon. Members have been returned to the House and have then discovered to their surprise, and frequently to the surprise of other hon. Members, that they have in fact been disqualified. I was hoping that it might be possible to arrange that the returning officer—the mayor in a borough, or the deputy acting returning officer in a county—should be able to hand to the candidate, or to the person applying for nomination papers on his behalf, a copy of the Schedule setting out the disqualifications and then ask him whether he had read it. I will not go beyond that.
Quite clearly we cannot leave the decision about the validity of a nomination paper or the qualification of the candidate to a returning officer, because in places where feelings run high, that might lead to some amazing results. I am sure that in its deliberations the Select Committee was anxious to reach a position whereby at the moment of nomination a candidate should be in a position to know whether, if returned, he would be eligible to serve. I imagine that it will make a considerable difference to the attitude of the House towards people who are found to be disqualified whether their attention has been specifically directed to the list of disqualifications or not. This is a matter which falls to be dealt with administratively, and I should like to


know whether the Government have yet reached any decision about how they will give practical effect to the decision of the Select Committee.

The Attorney-General: Obviously, if at great labour we produce a list of offices which disqualify, it is essential to take all possible steps to make those lists available to those who are concerned. In substance, that is the effect of the Clause. I do not think that in a Statute, or in election rules, one can go further than this provision, which will mean that the consent given by the candidate acknowledges that he is aware of these provisions of the Bill. If he once says that he is aware of them, I cannot imagine that any of us would have too much sympathy with him if he went wrong. However, it is obviously desirable—and I imagine that it can be dealt with administratively—that there should be available at offices where nomination papers are handed in up-to-date copies of the list of the disqualifications. I will certainly speak to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about that.
I go a little further than did the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in saying that it would probably be desirable for the lists to be available so that those thinking of becoming candidates can see the lists before they get as far as nomination. I imagine that this will, to a large extent, be covered by the activities of the respective parties, who will bring to the notice of all candidates belonging to political parties the contents of the lists. However, those who call themselves independent, or who use another label, will obviously find it desirable that the lists should be available, and I will certainly have a word with my right hon. Friend about it. It is clearly the intention to make sure that the provisions of the Bill are brought to the notice of the candidate, because he now has to sign a consent which contains a statement to that effect.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 13 and 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15.—(REPEALS.)

Mr. John Parker: I beg to move, in page 9, line 10, to leave out subsection (3).
The Bill does a very good job in tidying up anomalies, but it is unfortunate that it does not tidy up anomalies in the position of clergy, a position in which there are many anomalies. It is particularly unfortunate that it does not deal with this problem, because when we had an inquiry into the MacManaway case, a Select Committee reported that it did not think that it was right to deal with that problem in isolation, and said that it should be considered when the general question was considered. Unfortunately, when the Select Committee considered the matter, I did not then have support for going ahead with it.

The Chairman: It might be convenient if with the Amendment we discussed that in Schedule 4, page 28, line 38, at the end to insert:

41 Geo. 3, c. 63
The House of (Clergy Disqualification) Act, 1801.
The Whole Act.

Mr. Parker: Yes, Sir Charles.
The position of Anglican clergy is very anomalous indeed. Anglican clergymen in England and Ireland are not allowed to stand for Parliament. The position in Scotland is a little doubtful, but the Welsh Church Act, 1914, definitely allows an Anglican clergyman in Wales to stand for Parliament, if he so desires. An Anglican clergyman who came to this country from another part of the Commonwealth would be allowed to stand. Roman Catholic clergy are disqualified, a survival of the anti-Catholic Acts of the past, that particular provision not having been repealed when Catholics generally were allowed in the House.
It would be much better to remove all these disqualifications and put all Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy into exactly the same position as that of Nonconformist clergy. We have in the House at present very useful Members who are clergymen of various denominations, but not of the Church of England and not of the Church of Rome. I am not particularly anxious to have an abnormal flood of clergymen entering the House, but there should be equity between all sects in this matter. The time has now come for the removal of all these anomalies


and the repeal of laws against clergymen of the Church of England and of the Church of Rome entering the House, if they so desire.
Certain Churches would probably make rules saying that in certain circumstances their clergy should not come to the House. They are perfectly entitled to do that. The Church of Rome would probably take that very line, but this matter should be left to the Churches themselves to decide. If they do not want their clergy or officers to sit in the House, they should make that rule. It should not be a rule made in the House.
I therefore suggest that we should repeal those laws which ban clergy from sitting the House. We should make the position of all sects equal and remove what, for the Church of England, is a particularly silly anomaly, because some of its clergy from some countries are entitled to stand, while others from other countries are not.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: Would it not be right to say that there has been no demand so far from the Church of Rome for a remedy of the anomaly about which my hon. Friend is speaking?

Mr. Parker: When an inquiry was held about ten or twelve years ago evidence was given by Roman Catholics that they would like the law repealed and that then they would make their own rules to govern a matter which they thought should be dealt with under their own laws, rather than that they should be dictated to by outside bodies. The same may apply to other sects.
There is an anomaly which may well cause trouble in the future with regard to Southern Ireland. When the Church of Ireland was disestablished Gladstone forgot to include a Clause removing disqualification on Church of Ireland clergy for the United Kingdom Parliament. As a result of the MacManaway inquiry we have held that that applies to Northern Ireland. What would be the position of a citizen of Eire who was a clergyman in Southern Ireland and who came to the United Kingdom and was adopted as a candidate for Parliament? That is an anomaly which may arise in the future. I hope that we can repeal all this legislation and complete the good work.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: Would it be in order, Sir Charles, if we discussed the next Amendment on the Order Paper in my name, in page 9, line 14, at the end to add:
except in so far as the repeal of subsection (4) of section two of the Welsh Church Act, 1914, shall affect them".
Reference has been made to the Welsh Church by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker).

The Chairman: I had intended to call that Amendment separately, but if the Committee wish to discuss it with the other Amendment that will be in order.

Mr. Freeth: Then if I may address myself to that Amendment—

The Chairman: The hon. Member will understand that if his Amendment is discussed in this way, he cannot expect a Division on it in due course.

Mr. Freeth: I understand, Sir Charles, and doubtless the Government will be relieved.
The first thing I wish to deal with is whether the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dagenham achieves the object he has in mind, whether, if subsection (3) is omitted from the Bill, it will clear up the anomalies which, we all admit, exist. It appears to me that it would leave the present position unchanged and merely bring greater doubt into the situation. I agree with the hon. Member that while we are dealing with the disqualification of the holders of certain offices from becoming Members of the House of Commons, we ought, at the same time, to go into the question of whether certain ministers of religion can or cannot sit in this House. I suggest to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General that it will not be completing the job if we leave this very important aspect of the problem untouched by the provisions of the Bill.
I agree with the hon. Member for Dagenham that, basically, we want to have all ministers eligible, or no ministers eligible to sit in the House of Commons. I have spent a little time thinking about this matter. Indeed, for some years prior to my having an ambition to sit in this House I had an ambition to become a priest of the Church of England. When I was in hospital for some time I did a certain amount of


reading round the subject of ordination. I was most intrigued about the question of priests and deacons of the Church of England: why they might or might not sit as Members of the House of Commons.
The position of priests and deacons of the Church of England is perfectly clear. They cannot sit in this House. There are three basic reasons, or at any rate, I think there have been three strands to the argument for depriving them of the right to offer themselves for election. The first is that the Church as such is represented by the spiritual peers in another place. The second and very valid tradition is that the clergy of the Church of England, as of the Established Church of Scotland, are represented by their own Convocations which, I believe, in times past actually voted as regards taxation on behalf of the clergy in place of Parliament. Thirdly, there was the very important question whether ministers of the Gospel should consider themselves, or should be considered, eligible to take part in the difficult and often contentious business of trying to govern the country.
That point was best put in the Report of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Mr. MacManaway. I should like to quote from that Report:
Another and, perhaps a wider consideration dwelt upon the nature of the sacred calling itself, and invoked the ecclesiastical rather than the constitutional law. Was it compatible with the spiritual office to which the priest or deacon was irrevocably dedicated that he should devote himself to such mundane activities as were appropriate to a member of the House of Commons? Canon LXXVI, which had been adopted in the year 1603, had laid it down that 'no man being admitted Deacon or Minister shall voluntarily relinquish the same, nor afterwards use himself as a layman': and it is a matter of some significance that when Sir James Craddock was excluded from the Commons in 1661, the ground assigned was not that he had or might have a voice in Convocation, the ground assigned in the two previous cases, but that he was in Holy Orders and 'so disabled to sit'.
The Report goes on to point out that this attitude towards ministers of the Gospel was apparently also held in Scotland prior to the Act of Union, because in 1700 the Parliament of Scotland
is recorded to have accepted that a Mr. William Higgins had vacated his seat as Commissioner for the Burgh of Linlithgow 'upon

his being now an actual minister of the Gospel'.
I think it important for us to start at the beginning with the matter of principle. Do we or do we not believe, by and large, that people called as ministers of the Gospel in any religious denomination whatever are to be encouraged to take an active part in what the Report of their Lordships called
such mundane activities as were appropriate to a Member of the House of Commons"?
I submit that it is a bad thing for that to happen. I have always believed that a minister of the Gospel, no matter to what denomination he may happen to belong, is doing a disservice to religion when he takes an active part in party politics, which, today, means politics in the sense of sitting in this House.
Many hon. Members have their spiritual directors and consult them from time to time upon various aspects of public policy or particular aspects of what may or may not be done by a Government or Opposition, or in regard to Private Members' Bills and the like. It would be extraordinarily difficult to have one's conscience treated by a minister who had publicly pronounced himself in favour of a course of action which might be a course of action with which one's own party did not wish one to be associated. I think it would be very difficult for a Conservative to have a spiritual director who had declared himself to be a supporter of Socialist policy, sitting on the Socialist benches, and perhaps from time to time engaged in the somewhat heated exchanges which, at times of great crisis, occur in this House, and rightly occur, but which do not always produce the most charitable feelings between both sides of this House.
I think it would be an unfortunate thing if ministers of religion in general came to associate themselves more closely than they do now with party politics, because their job is to look after the moral tone, the moral welfare and the moral climate of the country, and it is, I think, essential that they should not act as I believe the late Queen Victoria wished them to do and, in general, support Her Majesty's Government, but rather that they should stand aside from Her Majesty's Government and from Her Majesty's Opposition and thereby be able the more authoritatively and the more dispassionately, and


thereby the more rightly, to give judgment upon the moral worth of any particular act of the Government or the Opposition.
I would, therefore, hope that we would not accept into this House of Parliament ministers of religion in general. In saying that, I am certainly not attacking, or in any way casting any doubts upon, the contribution which ministers of various denominations have made to our debates in the past. Whether that point he accepted or not by hon. Members of the Committee, I would suggest that the present situation really is unjust, if not unworkable. The lawful situation, as I understand, began with the House of Commons (Disqualifications) Act, 1801, and the wording of that Act is:
No person having been ordained to the office of priest or deacon or being a minister of the Church of Scotland is or shall be capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons.
The words "ordained to the office of priest or deacon" have been held to have various meanings, or have been held to be narrow or wide in scope. The early judgments and the opinions of learned lawyers today, and certainly the whole weight of the canon law of the Church of England, have always been held to imply that all priests and deacons who have been legally and properly ordained by an episcopal authority recognised by the Church of England under the Act of Uniformity, and in accordance with any other Measures which the Church Assembly might have presented to this House and been passed by it, are excluded, although there is the awkward problem of the minor orders of the Church of Rome and one would like also to mention the branch of the Old Catholic Church of Poland and Germany and the Christ Catholics of Switzerland.
When we come to the Church of Ireland, it needed a great many legal difficulties to decide whether the ecclesiastical law should prevail, and whether in fact, these words in the Act of 1801 apply in the ecclesiastical sense or only in the sense of a person who was ordained within the ambit of the legally established church of this country. The hon. Member for Dagenham gave it as his opinion that members of the colonial branches of the Anglican Church could sit in this House. I have always understood that

they could not. I do not know which of us is right, but the position ought to be laid down in clarity. One ought not to treat a clergyman who happened to have held his last benefice in the Church in Wales separately from a properly ordained priest who happened to have held his last benefice in Ireland or in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Mr. David Lloyd George's Welsh Church Act makes a specific exception of the priests and deacons of the Church of Wales. At the time when it was disestablished, we are told that Mr. Gladstone would have done the same with regard to the Church of Ireland, but that he overlooked the principle. I wonder whether Mr. Gladstone did overlook it, because he was a very great Churchman. He knew his canon law and had a very high opinion as to the position of clerics in the community. I am not at all sure that the reason why Mr. Gladstone did not produce in the Act disestablishing the Church of Ireland a parallel section to Section 2 (4) of Mr. Lloyd George's Act of 1914 was because he did not want to do so, not because he overlooked it.
I think that it is most unfortunate that these episcopally ordained priests and deacons who happen to have held their last benefices in the Church in Wales should be eligible to enter this House, while priests and deacons of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland definitely are not, and while priests and deacons of Anglican communions overseas appear to be in the position of not knowing whether, in fact, they have the right to sit or do not have that right.
6.15 p.m.
My Amendment differs from the proposal of the hon. Member for Dagenham, but, at any rate, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will admit that my Amendment will remove one anomaly, namely, that concerning clergy of the Church in Wales. It would reverse the position in that respect, but I very much doubt whether the hon. Gentleman's Amendment will clarify the position. While I am willing to argue the principle whether clerics should or should not have the right to sit in this House, I would suggest to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General that it is, in fact, quite unjust that certain Anglicans have the right to sit in the


House of Commons when certain others have not, and that the right of certain others should be left in doubt. Again, I think it is quite wrong that there should be certain Presbyterian bodies, the ministers of which have a right to sit in the House of Commons, apparently, while certain others have not.
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend, or my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary, if he is replying, will give an undertaking that the Government, between now and Report stage, will look into the whole question of the right of clerics, particularly of the Anglican communion, and I speak as an Anglican, to sit in this honourable House.

Mr. James H. Hoy: I want to ask how this Amendment would affect clergy of the Church in Scotland? I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Scotland, because I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not like the learned Attorney-General or the Under-Secretary to reply on behalf of Scotland on this issue.
There are certain Ministers of the Church of Scotland who are, of course, permitted to come to this House, and some have, in fact, been Members. One thinks immediately of the Reverend James Barr, who was a Member for very many years. I also know that there is a rule within the Church itself which prevents ministers of the Church of Scotland, after they have come to this House, having stood for Parliament, going back to the ministry again. They have to apply, if my information is correct, to the General Assembly of the Church to be readmitted to the Ministry.
I think that this would be an occasion on which the position might be made quite clear by the Secretary of State for Scotland, so that we would know how this Amendment would affect the Church in Scotland.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: I listened with very great interest to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Freeth). There are one or two points about which I disagree with him. The hon. Member began by stating what might be called the standard reasons for not having a clergyman of the Church of England as a Member of the House of Commons. He introduced the fact that the bishops sit in another

place and spoke of the work of the Convocation of the Church. In both those respects the Church of England and its clergy are able to express themselves on public matters. That argument does not seem to concern the point at issue, which is whether a particular constituency shall be free to have as its Member of Parliament a member of the Church of England or the Church of Rome, who is in priestly or deaconal orders.
The third point is the nub of the whole matter: is there some incompatibility between the activities of the House of Commons and the priestly activities of a clergyman of the Church? That is an important question, upon which it is legitimate to take different points of view. I should be very surprised, looking over the country with its variety of beliefs and points of view, and I should be disappointed, if no one ever held strongly that clergymen should not concern themselves with the matters with which we concern ourselves here. I should be equally disappointed and surprised if the opposite point of view were not also widely held. Both points of view can be held by reasonable people.
Where I differ from the hon. Gentleman is on whether the decision between those points of view should be made here. The decision should be made in the communions to which the priests and deacons belong. We would be doing the best service to this country in not taking that kind of decision, which carries with it many difficulties. It seems anomalous that clergymen of one Church are able to sit here while clergymen from another Church with perhaps the same doctrines cannot do so. They may be in different organisations of the same Church, or one may be in a unit of the same Church overseas, perhaps just across the English Channel. The doctrines in each case are exactly the same, but the eligibility to sit in the House of Commons is different.
In addition, there are wide varieties in individual belief, apart from the priests of the two Churches that are mainly concerned in this matter. Perhaps I should say three Churches, after what my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) has just said. In some religious communities the actual members take the same point of view. There are members of numerically small sects—for whom I have the very greatest respect—who say,


for instance, that they do not take part in elections of Members of the House of Commons or of local councils. I disagree with them. They say, "We are in the world, but not of it".
The point of view that a clergyman of a particular communion should not sit in the House of Commons is an extension or a different shade of the point of view that there are incompatibilities between what we do here and the doctrines held by the individuals concerned. I do not know where to draw the line, but wherever it is drawn it ought not to be drawn in the House of Commons. We ought to leave the decision in matters of this sort to the communions concerned. In point of fact, in so leaving it, we would do something for our own good. One of the great temptations for the House of Commons is to make decisions on things on which it ought not to make decisions at all. We clutter up our business with far too many things which should not be our concern. I should like to see this matter left to the communions.

Mr. Wigg: My approach to this matter is a little different from that of hon. Members who have already spoken. May I, first, congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Freeth) on having had such a very short illness. I gathered from him that his studies in this matter started when he was ill. They obviously did not take him very far, so I presume that his illness was measles, or a childish complaint of that kind. I congratulate him. If he had gone into the situation as it existed in 1801 it would have certainly taken him beyond the mere study of the Act of 1801.
What were the circumstances of the time? The Reverend Horne Tooke, who started his life with another name and profession, entered the Church. Eventually, after two or three tries, he was elected for Old Sarum. When he was elected, on the day he took the oath a noble Lord sitting in the House warned him that after the period of 14 days he would try to get the Reverend Home Tooke unseated. He got him unseated, but not because there was any spiritual disability. Mr. Chancellor Addington, who could sit without great difficulty on the existing Front Bench and knew all the tricks of the trade, was determined to get Horne Tooke out.
I have a copy of the proceedings of that time. Mr. Chancellor Addington said that the reason they should get rid of the Reverend Home Tooke and any other clergyman was because the independence and purity of the House of Commons might be impaired and diminished. He wanted Horne Tooke out of the House not because Horne Tooke was an ordained minister of the Church of England, but because Home Tooke had secured election to further the cause of political reform. The Tory Party and the bench of bishops in another place have always marched hand in hand in favour of the Establishment. Every reactionary Measure in the last hundred years has been supported without exception by the bench of bishops.
The logic chopping that enables persons to judge the merits of the Horne Tooke case and of the disabilities imposed upon clergymen of the Church of England and of other denominations, and to link that up with some spiritual limitation, is completely beyond me. In 1801 this was a question of political expediency.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Freeth: Will the hon. Gentleman not admit that whatever may have been the circumstances which led hon. Members in 1801 to pass this Act, one was that there was a doubt whether the clergyman in question had or had not the right to sit in the House, since it had been ruled in the seventeenth century, on no fewer than four occasions, that a clergyman of the Church of England could not sit in the House? I believe that there had been earlier cases in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Mr. Wigg: From my studies of the circumstances, it appears to me that from 1664 onwards there had been a number of cases of clergymen sitting in the House, but, as Mr. Chancellor Addington said, they had not described themselves as clerks of holy orders. As I understand, the case of Mr. Rushworth was fought to decide the issue, but it was discovered that he was a deacon and was not ordained. The Rushworth case could, therefore, be set on one side. My submission is that the case of Horne Tooke was decided by Mr. Chancellor Addington and the Government of the time not on the merits of whether the Reverend Horne Tooke, as an ordained priest, should sit


in the House, but because it was politically inconvenient that he should come here as an advocate of reform. That seems to me to be completely substantiated and I am surprised that anyone should challenge that point of view.
Nevertheless, I am not looking at the matter from the angle of the Reverend Horne Tooke or of the Reverend Horne Tookes of today. I am not looking at it from the point of view of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome. Each community should exercise its own discipline. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) said, that the Catholic Church resents the disability, but that if the disability were removed Catholic priests would not sit in the House. Equally, I am sure that if the House were wise today and repealed the 1801 Act and the subsection of Clause 15 which we are now debating, there would not be a flood of Church of England clergymen into the House.
The nub of the argument was put by Professor Thobold Rodgers, who is the only person I can find who wrote on Home Tooke with any authority. He said that
Probably, not one clergyman in ten thousand cares a jot for Horne Tooke's Act; probably not one in a thousand knows of its existence but he knows, with greater or less distinctness, that the statute law of the land has made him a separate civil order, a particular caste.
That is the point to which I object. Obviously, if a priest of the Church of England wants to get round the difficulty, he can do so very simply. All that a priest of the Church of England need do if he wishes to become a candidate for the House is to go to Wales, spend a few days there and become a curate. It seems to me a very high price to pay to have to spend a few days in Wales, but some are prepared to pay it. Once he is a curate in Wales he can become a candidate for the House.
I have been concerned about this matter ever since I read the first House of Commons Disqualification Bill, which the then Leader of the House sought to slip through as a second Order on a Friday afternoon. I beg hon. Members to look at this problem for a moment and at least to accept my sincerity. What we are engaged in is the high process of democracy. We are deciding not only

for ourselves; we may even be deciding whether democracy shall survive. May I remind hon. Members—and I have done this before—that democracy was not born in the Temple, it was not born among the lawyers and it was not born among men with tidy minds. It was born in the market place, in the Agora, in the clash of opinion.
What we want in the House is men like John Ball, men whose guts are on fire, who feel with passion, not merely Lobby fodder who will walk through the Lobbies and salute the Whip. At present, whether we like it or not, democracy in this country is not in a healthy state. It is very difficult indeed to find the radical tradition, which I believe has sustained us for the last three hundred years, and to find where expression is given to it. Time and time again it has appeared to be defeated and it has gone underground. Hon. Members should read that wonderful book, "Revolution in Tanners Lane", with the scene depicted on the morrow of Waterloo when the Radicals were under extreme pressure, spied on and defeated; but they yet kept alive the spark which subsequently found expression in the trade union movement, in the Co-operative movement and in the Free Churches, and which burst into flame later in the century and brought the day of victory in 1905.
Let hon. Members, particularly those on this side of the Commitee, look around today and see where they can find any signs of a great radical tradition. It is even suspect in our own party. Where is the questing and questioning mind, the refusal to accept the orthodox? If hon. Members carry it very far they may find themselves—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Godfrey Nicholson): I think that the hon. Member should try to connect his speech a little more with the Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: I am not aware that I have departed from the Amendment, Mr. Nicholson. It is my submission that the Act which we are seeking to repeal was placed on the Statute Book because of the objection of the Government of the day to the radical opinions of the Reverend Horne Tooke. What I am advocating is the recreation of conditions in which we have men like the Reverend Horne Tooke and in which they can secure election to


the House. If I am out of order in doing so, I have completely failed in my purpose in putting the Amendment on the Notice Paper.
I am seeking to repeal the Act of 1801. That Act was passed by an antiradical majority engaging in trickery, Popery and bare-faced cheating to misuse the facilities of the House to get a Measure through to exclude a man they did not want here and whose opinions they did not like. I like his opinions and that is why I am asking that we should have an opportunity of repealing the Act.
The hon. Member for Basingstoke was absolutely right in saying that the present situation is shot through with anomalies. It is not made very easy to deal with the matter because these anomalies exist. I agree that if the hon. Member for Dagenham and I had our way it is likely that other anomalies would remain, but we are here deciding a principle. If we can get a decision of the House, I hope by a free vote of the House, to repeal this Measure, we could with confidence leave it to the hon. Member for Basingstoke and his hon. Friends and the Attorney-General to do what we want between now and Report.
There is no great merit in this particular form of words, and it may well be that we have set about the problem in the wrong way. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham nor I are lawyers, but I made it plain in the first debate on 22nd July, 1955, again on the Second Reading of the first Bill and again on the Second Reading of this Bill that I should seek to secure this result, because I believe with passion that it is necessary not in the interests of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome, but in the interests of democracy, that we should give the opportunity to any man who feels that he has service to give to the community to find his way here. That is the principle upon which I stand.
When I first put the Amendment on the Notice Paper in connection with the original Bill, I very much hoped that I should be joined by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I always think of him as a good Radical. Recently, I re-read a book which I have read several times—a book by Miss

Wedgwood on her great ancestor, who was a friend of mine, Josiah Wedgwood. It is called, "The Last of the Radicals." I always thought it was a slanderous title, because I thought that there were two more, the right hon. Member for South Shields and myself. In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend cannot support me there are now only one and a half left; I am the one and he is the half.
If Josiah Wedgwood were alive he would be supporting us today. I hope very much that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, even at this late hour, will support us. I am sure that he is in agreement with what we are seeking to do. He may differ from us in method and he may feel that there is a danger that the House would be overrun by priests. In the debate on Second Reading I drew attention to the illogicality of debarring priests of the Church of England and having the bench of bishops at the other end of the corridor. I gathered from my right hon. Friend that he thought it wrong that the bishops should be there, and there may be something in that.
I want to draw attention to the Report of the Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification, issued after the MacManaway episode had been settled. I thought that that Report was a very good one. I do not agree with its conclusions, but what interested me very much was something in which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), who was a member of that Committee, will also find interesting. When the Chairman, the present Lord Coleraine, received the Archbishop of Canterbury, as hon. Members will see from the Report, the Archbishop was greeted with words different from those used to the heads of the other religious orders. To the Archbishop of Canterbury it was said:
Your Grace, we are very much obliged to you for coming to give us the benefit of your advice on this rather complicated problem …
In no other case was the head of a community asked to give his advice. That seems to underline just where we have gone wrong. The House of Commons does not require the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury on matters of this kind. The Archbishop of Canterbury


can decide for himself and give such advice as he wants to the members of his own community. He can give advice to the Church of England, but I suggest that it was quite wrong for that Committee to seek advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury on whether or not priests of the Church of England should sit in the House of Commons.
It is not a spiritual matter and we shall go wrong if we try to see it in spiritual terms. It is a political matter and should be decided in political terms. Our community here will be richer and wiser if it rejects the advice of the Archbishop, if it rejects the advice of the Select Committee and takes the essentially radical step of giving the opportunity—if constituencies can be found—to elect to the House of Commons anyone who has sufficient votes. That should be the principle; if a man has the votes he should have the right to be elected.

Mr. E. Fletcher: My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) as usual, has made a very striking speech. He has reiterated a great deal of what he said on Second Reading, but I am bound to say that I remain entirely unconvinced by what he or my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) said.
It is worth while reminding the Committee that this matter was very fully considered by the Select Committee. Those who have studied it will find that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham, who moved this Amendment, found himself in the Select Committee in a minority of one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley has pointed out, somewhat to his surprise, our right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was unable to support my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said a great deal with which I profoundly agreed. A great deal, I thought, was irrelevant and, therefore, although I agree with a great deal of what he said in the more eloquent parts of his speech about radicalism, I hope that the Committee will not accept this Amendment. The present position, as the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Freeth) pointed out, has been justified in the past on a variety of grounds, mostly historical constitutional grounds. Today, I think it is much better to oppose this

Amendment on severely practical grounds. I do not think that we are concerned today with the merits or demerits of Mr. Horne Tooke. A great many mistakes were made in those days.
6.45 p.m.
There are three practical reasons why we should be making a grave mistake if we sought, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham urged us to do, to reopen the whole question of clergy disqualification. First, there is no public demand for it at all. Secondly—this may appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale)—to reopen that question would inevitably arouse religious controversy, which, I think, would be a bad thing. Thirdly, it would inevitably reopen the whole question of the Establishment.

Mr. Wigg: How?

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend asks, "How?" It is obvious that if this Amendment were carried, and clergy of the Church of England were permitted to sit in this House, there would inevitably follow a demand for the removal of the bishops from another place. That may be a good or a bad thing, but in itself it would lead to the whole question of the Establishment. I happen to believe that the Establishment is a good thing, although others may think that it is a bad thing.
If the situation ever arose in which the House had to decide whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for the Establishment to continue, a great many matters would have to be taken into consideration, including the views of the Church of England, the views of other denominations and the views of our constituents. It seems a thoroughly bad thing, on a Bill of this kind, unnecessarily, and by a quite unnecessary, incidental Amendment, to involve an issue which inevitably would involve very great religious controversy, including the question of the Establishment. Whatever the merits or demerits of such a controversy might be if it were aroused, I cannot believe that it would be a good thing to start it.
If I required support for these reasons I would remind the Committee that this whole matter was very fully ventilated by the Select Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley has reminded us, following the MacManaway


episode. I had the honour to serve on that Committee. A great deal of evidence was taken as a result of the MacManaway case as to whether or not the time had arrived to review the whole question of clergy disqualification. Everyone admitted that there were certain anomalies. No one pretended that the present situation was in accordancewith complete logic. Nevertheless, that Committee came to the conclusion that it would be a great mistake to change the situation.

Mr. Parker: Until there was a general overhaul.

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is not quite right. What the Committee said was:
Short of abolishing entirely all clerical disqualifications your Committee have considered whether it would be practicable by some limited action to deal with the anomalies which exist in the present law. Not only might any attempt to do so create new anomalies but it could scarcely be undertaken without opening up the whole question of the basis upon which the disqualification at present rests. In these circumstances, your Committee think that it would not be desirable to introduce any legislation to deal with the anomalies ahead of any general legislation which may hereafter be contemplated to deal with the qualification and disqualification of members generally.
As my hon. Friend said, the Committee was, in fact, saying, "Let us not, at this stage, try to remove anomalies, because any attempt to do that would only create fresh anomalies".
On the question of whether all this disqualification should be removed or not, the Committee said:
The proposals for amendment were advanced on grounds of principle rather than grounds of practical need.
In quoting the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Committee said that:
The Archbishop epitomised the views of most other witnesses when he said, 'If you finally reported that it would be much better to leave the thing alone, I should not doubt that you might well have taken the course of wisdom'.
That was precisely the view to which I think the Committee unanimously came. Whatever may be the position in logic, whatever may be the theoretical argument that a particular clergyman in the Church of England may find a device whereby, by obtaining some preferment in Wales, he could get a constituency outside Wales to elect him to the House, and

granted that that is a most unlikely situation to arise and if it did occur it might or might not be undesirable, the central fact remains that a great many people, both of the Roman Catholic faith and in the Anglican Confession, feel that there is some inconsistency and incompatibility between membership of the House of Commons and ordination in those communions.
At the same time, for reasons which I am bound to say it is very difficult to explain, many of us who hold that opinion happen to believe that there is nothing incongruous, inconsistent or undesirable in the fact that Nonconformist ministers do sit in the House of Commons. These are apparent anomalies which, although they do not seem to be defensible in logic, nevertheless exist.
There is the further fact that for centuries bishops have sat in the House of Lords. It seems to me to be very difficult to argue, as a matter of logic, that one should exclude priests of the Church of England from the House of Commons because if one admitted them they would become embroiled in party politics while at the same time defending, as I do, as long as the House of Lords exists, the constitutional position, which has lasted so long, whereby bishops sit in the House of Lords and do, in recent times at least, I think, manage not to embroil themselves in party politics.
I do not accept the criticism made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley in its modern context. Historically, I accept that for a very long time, certainly throughout the nineteenth century and possibly during the early decades of this century, most of the bishops of the Church of England favoured courses of reaction rather than courses of progress, but I myself doubt whether that is a criticism which could validly be made today.

Mr. Wigg: I agree that there are honourable exceptions to that. There was one very great exception, Archbishop Temple; but, by and large, the bench of bishops in the House of Lords supports the party opposite.

Mr. Fletcher: The House of Lords is a Tory body, anyhow. Even though that argument were valid, I do not think that it is relevant to this issue.
As I have said, the whole of this question was very fully ventilated by the Select Committee a very short time ago. For those reasons, it would, in my view, be a disservice to the Church, a disservice to the House of Commons and a disservice to the community if, by adopting the suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham, we were at this juncture to bring into the area of public controversy the whole subject of clerical disqualification, the relations of Church and State, and the position of the Establishment.

Mr. Hale: I wish to speak very briefly on one or two points with which I profoundly disagree. I disagree with almost every word said by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Freeth), and with nearly every word said by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), whose views I usually respect and for whom I have such regard.
First, the Select Committee is our wash-pot. It might be said that a Select Committee is a useful instrument for nominating people to report on a matter so that the House may consider their views; but to come to this Chamber and to say that because a Select Committee has decided this matter we all ought to take that view, and that that is an end of the matter, is really putting the position of Select Committees a great deal too high.
The hon. Member for Basingstoke appears to have a much more debased view of politics than I have. I think that politics are a matter of morals and ethics. I believe that we here give effect to morals and ethics as far as we can. I believe that if we sometimes set our ethical and moral targets very high we may have to approach them rather more slowly because of the difficulty of change. But to suggest that there is something corrupting in this Assembly, and that our deliberations are not ethical, is surely quite wrong.
I should like to have Church of England clergymen or any other clergymen coming here to tell me why it is right to fight wars. I should like to hear them discuss these vital and important topics of theology. The whole nation is concerned in the ethical implications of our views, so why should we exclude from this Assembly men trained in these matters?

Mr. Mellish: Would my hon. Friend allow me to say—

Mr. Hale: No, not at four minutes to seven. The House as a whole is to turn to the consideration of another matter at seven o'clock. It would mean my remaining here throughout that business before I could continue my remarks, or, during the three minutes and fifty-nine seconds which remain, concluding what I have to say. It is the latter which I propose to do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) takes a much more rosy view of Mr. Horne Tooke than I do. This man, whom he describes as having guts in his belly—[Laughter.] That is the result of self-enforced brevity. My hon. Friend did say that the man had fire in his guts. He was a man who managed to inherit a fortune by attacking the Speaker of the House of Commons and holding up some essential private business. He then retired to Purley, or what was then Wimbledon, and wrote his "Diversions" for thirty years, rarely emerging from Wimbledon.
He was hardly a man whose passionate fire was noticed for the greater part of his life. He was a corrupt and dissolute clergyman who possessed a great deal of wit. Six months after his ordination, Mr. Horne Tooke was playing cards publicly on Sunday afternoon in the window-seat of his house near the main street. He wrote to Wilkes a scandalous and disgraceful letter, talking about the obscene touch of the bishop having been placed upon his head. He got himself elected to the House of Commons at the time when one got oneself elected by buying a seat.
At this point, my hon. Friend is on surer ground historically. It is true that no one objected to having a clergyman in the House. There had been half-a-dozen since the seventeenth century, and no one then objected. But no one was less of a clergyman than Mr. Home Tooke, who had now assumed the surname of his benefactor. Horne Tooke was tolerated for quite a number of months, until he began to attack the Establishment and committed the awful crime of attacking pensions, a subject which we were discussing on a previous Amendment. The Members of the House then rose in their fervour and decided that a clergyman of the Church of


England could not sit in the House of Commons.
I should like to recall Mr. Horne Tooke's own speech, which, I think, would still be the best speech on this debate had he survived. He pointed out that he had done everything he could to cease being a clergyman. He said that he was not a clergyman, that he was not practising, that he had long resigned his benefice, and, for a long time, had ceased to perform any ecclesiastical function. He said that he was like the young girl who called at the Magdalen Hospital and demanded admittance. The curator said to the girl, "Are you of good character?" She said, "Yes". The curator asked her if she had committed any sin, to which she replied "No". He said, "Have you contracted any disease?", to which she replied, "No, I have not." "Then", said the curator, "I am sorry, but you do not qualify for admission. Go out and sin. Having lost your character and your health, come back, and you will be perfectly fit to be admitted to this place".
This is the doctrine which we are now being asked to accept today. We are asked to say that a clergyman who has been so dissolute that he ceases to be a clergyman can be admitted; or if we do not apply the moral test, we apply a geographical test and say that the clergyman who occupies a benefice—

It being Seven o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair, further Proceeding standing postponed until after the consideration of Private Business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business).

Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

STOCKTON-ON-TEES CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

7.1 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd: As the elected representative of the borough of Stockton-on-Tees in the House of Commons, it is my duty to ask the House tonight to give a Second Reading to the Stockton-on-Tees Corporation Bill. I do this at the unanimous request of the members of the town council, representing all political parties. This is, indeed, a non-political issue so far as the town of Stockton-on-Tees is concerned. Moreover, the general good will of the people of Stockton is behind the Bill.
I also support the Bill from my own experience of the borough over eleven or twelve years, because I believe that it is right and proper that it should be introduced at this time and that it should be given a Second Reading so that it can be sent upstairs to a Committee to be dealt with in detail.
The Bill has one object only; that is, to change the status of the non-county borough of Stockton-on-Tees into that of a county borough. I stress emphatically that it makes no territorial demands on any other part of the county, or of the adjacent county of the North Riding. Provision is made in the Bill for services such as police and fire to be dealt with by a joint authority, and the Bill proposes that Stockton-on-Tees should have representation on the existing police authority with the Durham County Council, with Darlington, and with the other county borough of West Hartlepool, and on the fire authority also, and that it should, of course, be liable for its due proportion of the costs.
We in this House are anxious to see that local government is both local and effective. In paragraph 15 of the White Paper on Local Government (Cmd. 9831) issued in July, 1956, the Government lay down the criterion which they consider is right. They say:
The test of any system of local government in this country should be whether it provides


a stable structure, capable of discharging efficiently the functions entrusted to it, while at the same time maintaining its local democratic character.
That is an excellent definition and one with which I agree. I hope this evening to satisfy the House that the proposed Bill to make a county borough of Stockton-on-Tees fulfils those conditions and that Stockton-on-Tees as a county borough would be an effective and convenient unit of local government administration. If we take the tests both of the administrative record of the town and of its resources and population, I hope to show that it is in every way fitted to carry out these functions.
Stockton-on-Tees is a very ancient borough indeed. It received its Charter from King John early in the thirteenth century, but I stress our claim, not on history or tradition, but on the fact that it is today a thriving, prosperous industrial town with a population of over 76,000, geographically compact, well identifiable and easily distinguishable from the rest of the county around it and, in my view, readily detachable from the administrative county without causing any headache to anybody.
Our record of housing and industrial development in the post-war period is excellent and compares more than favourably with that of other comparable towns. It is clear that we have available resources to carry out all the essential functions. The rateable value of the town was £826,877 on 1st April, 1956, and the estimated product of a penny rate, £3,252. That Stockton-on-Tees can stand on its own feet is clearly proved in the Report of the Local Government Boundary Commission, 1947. That Commission made a thorough, detailed examination of local government and in its Report recommended that in the first list of new county boroughs there should be included, first, all existing county boroughs with a population of over 60,000 and, secondly, all existing non-county boroughs with a similar population. Those were ten in number and included Stockton-on-Tees.
In paragraph 62 of its Report, the Commission said:
We are entirely unable to distinguish between the towns in (1)"—

that is, the county boroughs—
and those in (2)"—
that is, the non-county boroughs—
on individual merits. The ten non-county boroughs are as capable of administering local government services as are most of the 52 county boroughs.
In that connection, I should like to make a comparison between the existing county boroughs of Darlington, twelve miles distant on one side of Stockton, and the existing county borough of West Hartlepool, twelve miles away on the other side. Those two towns are roughly comparable in population, resources, environment and tradition with Stockton-on-Tees. West Hartlepool and Darlington, however, are county boroughs, whereas we in Stockton are in an inferior position, still being a non-county borough. It is quite an anomaly at this time that we should be in that position.
Viewed in isolation, therefore, if that were the only test, it is my belief that on individual merits it would be impossible for the House to withhold county borough status from Stockton-on-Tees. There is, however, one other test, and that is the effect of detaching the town from the rest of the county. If it could be shown that by making Stockton a county borough, the county itself would suffer or that it could not exist or could not be a viable unit without Stockton, that would be a strong argument against giving the Bill a Second Reading. If the House studies the facts objectively, however, it will, I hope, be clear that the position of the county is in no way threatened by what the Bill proposes.
The following figures are relevant. The population of the county without Stockton-on-Tees would be reduced by 8 per cent.—from 914,600 to nearly 840,000. In my view, that is not a mortal blow to the existence of County Durham. Its rateable value would be reduced by 10½ per cent.—from £7,821,000 to nearly £7 million. Again, that would not make the county unable to exist. The estimated product of a penny rate would fall by 11 per cent.—from £29,363 to £26,111. It is, I hope, clear from those figures that County Durham would be capable of efficient, independent existence without Stockton-on-Tees.
In terms of population, the county would still be larger than 39 existing counties: it would still be ninth in the list


of counties by population. Its position with regard to rateable value means that there would still be only ten English counties with a higher rateable value and 37 with a lower rateable value. Thus, it can hardly be said that the standing of Durham would diminish greatly as a result of this action. Indeed, in the petition of the county against the Bill, there is no mention that Stockton is incapable of operating as a county borough or that the future of the county is seriously jeopardised by this action.
The main point in the petition seems to be that this is not the right time and that consideration should be deferred for the time being. Of course, so far as Durham is concerned, the time will never be right, whenever it is. Stockton is too good a milch cow for the rest of the county to lose. In fact, with a population of just over 8 per cent. of that of the county, we have 10½ per cent. of its rateable value and 60 per cent. of the rates in Stockton-on-Tees go to the county.
What would Stockton gain as a result of the Bill? There would be a return to a Stockton county borough of those services lost as a result of legislation since 1944—health, planning, education, fire brigades, midwifery, welfare services, ambulances, domestic help—and the care of children and, with the addition of secondary and further education, we should revert to the pre-war position. We should, of course, gain enormously in prestige. There is a disposition in some quarters to sneer at this as an argument, but to people who serve on local authorities prestige is important. When non-county boroughs have been losing services, it is a frustration to members of those bodies to feel that they are not so important as they once were. Therefore, we should become a more attractive centre if those services were restored to us.
There are nine boroughs in County Durham. Five are county boroughs and four are non-county boroughs. The county boroughs are Sunderland, with a population of 182,000, Gateshead with 113,000, South Shields with 107,000, Darlington with 83,000, and West Hartlepool with nearly 73,000. At the top of the second division, as it were, comes Stockton with 76,000, followed by Jarrow with 29,000, Durham with 20,000 and Hartlepool with 17,000. Therefore, it is clear

that Stockton ought to be in the first list with the county boroughs.
Secondly, we should gain direct control of services and finance. There are difficulties in operating certain local government services from a remote authority over 20 miles away, which meets only quarterly as a full council and inevitably tends to become more bureaucratic than a town council. The Minister of Housing and Local Government, when he spoke of proposed changes in local government finance on 12th February, said:
With this change, local authorities will acquire a great increase of responsibility in determining the money to be spent on the various services, in accordance with local needs. Local Government will become more truly local.
I ask the House to note that.
Our aim is to foster and stimulate a vigorous and independent local government, and to give members of councils a greater incentive to take a lively interest in their local expenditure by placing much more of it under their own control."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 12th February, 1957; Vol. 564, c. 1083.]
That is precisely what we are asking for in this Bill.
We are asking that local government should become more local. We have heard gibes about the gentlemen in Whitehall knowing best. It is our conviction that the gentlemen in our town hall know better than the gentlemen in the shire hall, and we prefer the town hall to the shire hall in the conduct of our affairs.
It is generally recognised that a closely-knit community such as Stockton can deal with its own local government matters in a much more speedy way than can a remote county council. I give one example. In Stockton we have been wanting for a long time an occupation centre for mentally handicapped children. This matter was raised by myself and others in 1950. It was raised by the town council in 1951, but, because the matter had to go through the whole paraphernalia of consideration by the county council, etc., the centre was not finally opened until April, 1954. Yet the only expenditure incurred was on some minor alterations to a church hall, costing £500. I am quite certain that if we in Stockton had had full control of the venture the whole thing would have gone through in a matter of months.
If we had county borough status the services would be much better adapted


to local needs, as a result of the local knowledge of our councillors. There would be much less sense of frustration, and, most important, there would be a cessation of delegated functions. Any member of a non-county borough knows full well that delegation of function does not work smoothly, and Durham County Council in particular is rather niggardly in the amount that it is prepared to delegate. It delegates the barest minimum. Consequently, there has been friction between the town council and the county council on the question of delegated powers. This has been particularly so in respect of health and planning administration. Delegation is itself a very poor substitute for the direct conferment of power on an authority which is perfectly capable of operating as efficiently and as economically as is Stockton.
I do not want to go into the individual difficulties that have arisen. It would take some time and would delay the House in coming to a decision, but I want to mention that the town map, under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, has not yet been submitted to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. That is a very difficult task in any case, but when it becomes complicated by the matter having to go through the county council and the town council it becomes more and more involved. Many consultations have to take place, there are very great complications, and the time involved becomes far too extended.
The day-to-day activities of the health services are centred in Durham. There is an area health sub-committee for the borough but in many ways it is a rubber stamp and the borough members of it feel that it is a complete waste of time to attend. The medical officer of health of our borough is an area medical officer for the county and he has no authority to act on his own initiative. The town council has made many approaches to the county council for local autonomy in this matter but so far has been unsuccessful.
The community of interest of Stockton is not shared by the rest of the county. The county itself is in the main pre-occupied with mining and agriculture. The Stockton area is an area of heavy industry, self-contained, easily defined, with a great civic consciousness. We look

more to the Tees and to the industrial towns of the Tees than we do to the county, and it is clear that members of the county council are not in the best position to judge what is best for a town like Stockton.
I suspect that the main objection to the Bill that will be put forward, as usual, by the Government is that it anticipates Government action and substitutes piecemeal legislation for the overall review of the areas and status of local government. How often has that been the excuse for inactivity. We have had it every year that a Bill of this kind has been brought forward.
On 17th April, 1951, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) used this argument in the case of the Luton Bill. I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary at the time and I know all about it. He stonewalled very well and gave nothing away. Would my right hon. Friend expect that six years later, in 1957, a Government of a different persuasion would be using the very same argument? Year after year, in relation to Bill after Bill, Minister after Minister has used this argument to block the legitimate aspirations of good local government units.
I had hopes of my right hon. Friend because on 14th March, 1951, he relaxed in respect of extension when we were dealing with the Sheffield Bill. He said:
I think it would be a mistake to hold up all proposed extensions because at some later stage some change in local government may take place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March, 1951; Vol. 485, c. 1636.]
Admittedly, that was said in respect of extension. However, six years later, I hope that my right hon. Friend has made sufficient progress to recognise that status is just as important now as extension was in 1951.

Mr. Hugh Dalton: As my hon. Friend has stated, he was my most efficient and helpful Parliamentary Private Secretary at a time when I was making several speeches, from two of which he has quoted. But there is a great difference, he will excuse me for saying, between promoting to county borough status any of the non-county boroughs—and Luton has a stronger case than Stockton, though not strong enough to convince me—and what he has just called a modest extension to the great


City of Sheffield, which I think amounted to taking a few housing estates and a few picturesque ravines, too vertical to be built upon. I thought the second was justifiable, the former not justifiable at all, and I cite that to show what a discriminating judgment I brought to bear upon the problem.

Mr. Chetwynd: I made two allowances for the fact that my right hon. Friend is a county borough and also a county member for Durham, but I had hoped that he would have made some progress in this time. However, I suppose I have to write him off so far as this Bill is concerned.
Six years later we now have as an excuse the Government White Paper published in July last year, which I ask the House to notice has not yet been debated. So the House has not yet formed a judgment upon it, and it seems that that does not imply any degree of urgency on the part of the Government in getting this matter through. Legislation is involved in the implementation of that White Paper but, clearly, there will be no legislation on local government changes during the present Session. When we reckon that next Session we shall also have to deal with the complicated financial changes proposed by the Minister a few weeks ago, it is extremely doubtful whether the Government, if still in existence, will be able to deal next Session with this issue of local government reform. After that, it is anybody's guess what might happen. My reckoning is that it will be at least between five and ten years before we can get any adequate overall reform of local government in this country.
Surely we are not expecting progressive local authorities to keep dragging their feet in this way year after year, put off by these promises of an overall reform? Even if the proposals in the White Paper are accepted, and carried into effect, then a local government boundary commission has to be established. That has to make its review and its report and bring forward its recommendations. Past experience indicates that there is no guarantee that such a report will be acceptable to this House. Therefore, I think it is unfair of the Government to expect local authorities to put up with this delay and frustration further.
When the present Prime Minister was Minister of Housing and Local Government, speaking on the Luton Bill on 18th March, 1954, which is a long time ago now, he brought forward the old argument that the House should oppose the Bill because a general reorganisation was in sight. But he made this important statement:
However, I have not forgotten the need of local government, and I agree that its turn is overdue … Quite clearly, decisions on this matter cannot be put off indefinitely".
This was in 1954.
I feel confident at least of this, that it will be possible for a statement of the Government's intentions one way or another to be made early next Session, and that is why I am asking the House not to give a Second Reading to the Luton Bill … But I will add this.
This is the significant thing—
This is the last time that I hope either I or my successor will ask the House to refuse approval to a Bill giving county borough status to a local authority solely on the ground that a new prospect is just around the corner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1954; Vol. 525, c. 711 and 712.]
Yet I rather suspect that that is the argument which we shall get from the Minister, who is not the immediate successor of that right hon. Gentleman whom I have just quoted, but the next but one.
It should be borne in mind that the present Prime Minister is a former Member for the borough which I now represent, Stockton-on-Tees, and but for electoral misfortune in 1945 it might have been his duty today to be introducing this Bill. I wonder what he would have said then? The right hon. Gentleman has a long and detailed knowledge of the borough, and he knows of the aspirations of its members and of the people. It is a happy, or perhaps ironic, coincidence that the first Bill in his Prime Ministership asking for county borough status should be promoted by the right hon. Gentleman's former constituency.
I hope that he will not go back on the words which he used in 1954. If he does, I am sure that it will cause grevious disappointment to many of the people in my constituency who still look to him for guidance and for assistance. [Interruption.] Of course there are some. I hope, however, that if he does not give his support to this Bill, for reasons which I can well understand, at least we shall have his benevolent neutrality or, failing that, his absence.
In conclusion—because I have detained the House for long enough—I believe that I have satisfied the House of the qualifications of the borough of Stockton-on-Tees to be promoted to county borough status. First, it is so qualified by the fitness of the authority concerned to discharge the functions of a county borough in relation to its population, resources, and administrative record. Secondly, this Bill will have no detrimental effect upon the county. Thirdly, it really does not prejudice the future reorganisation of the structure of local government. I think that all Members will agree that we are indeed weary of waiting for that, and that we should go ahead now with this very sensible Bill. Fourthly, there is no real community of interest between the town and the county, and the sooner we recognise that, the sooner those frictions and local, petty irritations will disappear.
The motto of the town, if I can speak it correctly in Latin, is "Fortitudo et Spes". I hope that the House will continue bearing the rest of the debate with fortitude, and I hope that we shall have the hope at the end of it that the House, reviewing the facts objectively, will decide that this is a Bill worthy of a Second Reading, and worthy of being sent upstairs for further consideration. It is my belief that in the interests of good local government this Bill should receive its Second Reading on a free vote of the House.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. William Blyton: I rise to ask the House to reject the Bill, the Second Reading of which has been asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd). I must say at once that I should have liked to have heard him make a more objective speech, instead of trying to besmirch the administration of County Durham, whose standard has ranked very high since 1921, when there were colleagues of his own party on that council.
I ask for the rejection of the Bill because of the great principle involved, the principle which this House has to decide tonight. The subject of the creation and the extension of county boroughs was dealt with in the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government which was published in 1925, and,

since 1926, no county borough has been constituted. In 1945, the Local Government Boundary Commission provided an opportunity for the consideration by a statutory body, intended to be permanent, of problems associated with the alterations of local government areas. The Boundary Commission, in its 1947 Report, made recommendations which dealt, not only with extensions of existing county boroughs, but also with the creation of new ones.
Between 1949 and 1953, three boroughs promoted Bills to obtain county borough status. All were opposed by the counties affected and none received the Royal Assent. After this, two of those boroughs and another promoted similar Bills but withdrew them when the Minister announced that he was considering proposals for alterations of local government.
It is our submission that the future of counties and boroughs should be examined in relation to any changes contemplated by the Minister in local government as a whole. The Minister himself and his predecessor had a series of talks with the local government associations to see how far conflicting views on the changes needed in local government could be reconciled. In the light of these discussions, the Minister presented to Parliament a White Paper dealing with the general structure of local government.
Among the conclusions stated in the White Paper is that there are five main problems to be examined. The first is the creation of new county boroughs. The White Paper suggests a new procedure, namely, the creation of local government commissions for England and Wales. Their main task is to make recommendations to the Minister about extensions by county boroughs and the creation of new county boroughs. The White Paper adds that one of the first tasks of the commissions would be to deal with applications for promotion to county borough status. The White Paper also states that to set up this machinery to effect the changes envisaged, legislation would be needed.
The Minister also promised that before framing his legislation he would have further talks with all the local authority representatives of the five organisations and would consult the views of Parliament. In page 13 of the White Paper


there is a statement of proposals covering the main issues which the Minister had discussed with the local authority associations.
The five associations, which represent the whole of local government in this country, decided that they would recommend to their members the embodiment of the proposals in the Appendix to the White Paper. It should be remembered that the associations who have put forward this Appendix and recommended it to their members are the County Councils' Association, the Urban District Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Rural District Councils' Association and the Parish Councils' Association.
The Appendix, in page 14, states the basis upon which borough status should be considered. There is, first, its ability, having regard to population, resources and other factors, to discharge effectively the functions of a county borough, and, secondly, the effect that the promotion, if made, would have upon the county as a whole. It further states that, in considering a county borough for promotion, there should be a presumption that an authority with 100,000 or more population is able to discharge the functions effectively of a county borough, and that an authority with fewer than 100,000 should be required to show an exceedingly good reason to justify promotion.
It is also suggested in the Appendix—and this is the suggestion which the five associations have recommended their members to accept—that pending a decision on the proposals it is undesirable that there should be any promotion of a non-county borough to borough status, except where all the authorities in the area concerned are in agreement.
I suggest that in present circumstances this Bill should not be passed into law. Stockton has a population of 75,680, which is 680 over the present limit for application for county borough status. Its rateable value is £826,878, and a 1d. rate brings in £3,252. While the borough is an excepted district, under the Education Act, for primary and secondary education, it would, if granted county borough status, remain to a great degree dependent on the county for the efficient administration of further education.
I put it to the House that the fate of this Bill is of the utmost importance to all

county councils in England and Wales, because they would undoubtedly be prejudiced if, at this stage in the progress towards the reorganisation of local government, the House were to give it a Second Reading. I hope that the House will not be unmindful that the five great associations which represent local authorities have agreed, pending a decision on the proposals which they agreed to recommend, that it would be undesirable that there should be any promotion of a non-county borough or urban district to county borough status.
The Bill, if it were carried, would mean a big loss of revenue to County Durham and a higher rate for the services in the county on the rest of the people in County Durham. The Stockton people have at present six councillors on the County Council and the corporation has never suggested an increase in its numbers.
The Bill itself asks, in Clause 10, for an amendment of the Durham police amalgamation scheme so as to include the borough within the Durham County police area. Clause 11 asks for a combination scheme with respect to the county and the borough being made by the county council under the Fire Services Act, 1947. Therefore, even if it got borough status, it is asking for the police and the fire brigade to help them in that particular area. This would mean the setting up of joint committees between the two authorities for the administration of these services. Joint committees oftentimes cause delay, involve a more cumbersome procedure than exists today and deprive the county of co-ordination of expenditure or any extension of a county borough except where all the authorities concerned are in agreement.
The White Paper states, in page 17, under the heading "Interim arrangements", that
Pending a decision on these proposals …
those of the five big associations representing local authorities—
… it is undesirable:

(a) that there should be any reviews of county districts under Section 146 of the Local Government Act, 1933; or that any individual district should be eliminated without their consent, unless in the most exceptional circumstances;
(b) that there should be any promotion of a non-county borough or urban district to


county borough status or any extension of a county borough except where all the authorities concerned are in agreement."
In Stockton's case, there are no exceptional circumstances. The authorities concerned have not agreed. In fact, the Durham County Council has petitioned against the Bill.
Therefore, tonight the House has to decide whether the future of local government is to be prejudiced by the Bill receiving a Second Reading. The Association of Municipal Corporations supported the proposals in the Appendix to the White Paper in the light of the Minister's assurance that a thorough review of local government finance would take place. Consequently, we are faced tonight with the fact that Stockton is ignoring the proposals put to the Minister by the five great associations of local authorities. In fact, Stockton is trying to jump the queue with this Bill and to obviate the need for its case to go, with others, before the local government commission which it is proposed to set up. It is on that basis, because of the big principle involved in that local government administration is to be reviewed, that I ask the House to vote against the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: I gather that the hon. Member does not wish to move the Amendment standing in his name. It is not necessary to move it. Hon. Members who agree with him can vote against the Second Reading.

Mr. Blyton: I do not think it is necessary to move the Amendment, Mr. Speaker. It is a direct negative.

7.43 p.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) played with an exquisite touch on the historical ironies of the situation. Ironies apart, I think the House would like to recognise, in general, that this is indeed an historic occasion, because I think that this will be the last occasion on which a Bill will be moved for this purpose under the 1888 and 1926 Acts.

Mr. Charles Pannell: The hon. Gentleman was not here, but we have heard that said before.

Mr. Iremonger: This hon. Gentleman was not here, and this hon. Gentleman did not hear it.

Mr. Pannell: I am speaking of the time before the hon. Member arrived in the House.

Mr. Iremonger: Perhaps I might be allowed to continue my speech. The 1926 Act has had a run of thirty years. I think it has now come to the end of its course, and a singularly barren animal it has proved to be. In the whole of the thirty years there has been only one borough which has improved its status by means of a Measure introduced under the procedure provided by that Act, and that was Doncaster.
That Act has proved, in general, that the gate is too strait and the gauntlet is too vicious for any borough to succeed in obtaining county borough status under it. Consequently, we might well feel that this is a vain hope on the part of the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees in trying to persuade us to give the Bill a Second Reading. I do not think so, however, and I propose to support him and to vote for the Bill, and I hope that sufficient hon. Members will follow us into the Lobby so that the Bill will become the second fruit of that thoroughly inadequate Act.
Even if it is a vain hope, I think we ought to be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his quixotry in bringing the Bill forward, because it at least gives others of us who feel strongly on this point in a similar connection an opportunity to impress upon the Minister what strong feelings we have and also to ask the Minister for certain assurances and information which we badly need.
Hon. Members who were in the last Parliament and the Parliament before that will remember that similar Bills have been withdrawn and that the Minister has said that we must be patient and not deal with these things piecemeal but wait for the comprehensive scheme of local government organisation and the reform of local government finance. To my certain knowledge and recollection, since the last time three years have passed, and whereas, in the past, our patience was only slightly tempered with anxiety, now our anxiety predominates and our patience has been exhausted.
I would not say that in the three years which have gone by there have been absolutely no signs of progress at all. Some slight scents of spices have been


borne to us on the night breeze from the distant shore and in the dawns we have seen vague shapes on the horizon which we hoped might be the promised land. We have had, for example, the White Paper on the areas and status of local authorities. It told us that the Government intend to set up a local government commission to make recommendations to the Minister about the creation of county boroughs. It told us that the Minister should submit to Parliament Orders giving effect to those recommendations, with any amendments that he considers desirable. It has told us that each Order should cover substantial portions of the country.
As to my direct interest, we have been told that in the conurbation of Metropolitan Essex we can expect to find a grouping of county boroughs which, between them, will take over the whole area, and we are invited to conceive above that either some kind of joint body or common services to which county boroughs will send delegates, or some kind of upper-tier authority or watered-down county council.
Those are the possibilities to which we have to look forward. We are told in the last paragraph of the White Paper that to set up the machinery to effect these changes legislation will be needed. We accept that. Then we are told that, before framing such legislation, the Government will wish to have further discussions with local authority representatives and to consider the views which may be expressed in Parliament and elsewhere. That is how things have gone, and that is what we have to look forward to. We have to wait for discussions between local authorities and the Government, and we have to wait for a Parliamentary review of the whole subject.
Again, we were told on 12th February that the Government have completed their review of local government finance and that they have to discuss matters with local authorities and others. The House must ask: how much longer have we to wait? I am not going to wait any more. I am going into the Lobby tonight in support of the Bill, and I hope that sufficient hon. Members will also do so to give the Bill a Second Reading.
The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) said that if the House gave the Bill a Second Reading it would

cause those who will have the duty of forming judgments on these matters in the local government commission to be biassed in favour of increasing the status of those asking for county borough status. I believe that that is a very good reason for voting for the Bill. Consequently, I hope that all hon. Members who represent boroughs which, for years, have groaned under the yoke of county imperialism will support us in the Lobby.
I sit in the House tonight as an Ilford nationalist and I hope that other nationalists, under a suitably coloured flag, will go through the Lobbies quickly, before all the "county blokes" get back. We do not want to be too long about the debate. We want to vote for the Bill quickly.
I will give a crumb of comfort to my right hon. Friend. I am afraid that he will find himself in the minority tonight. I expect that he will ask us to be a little more patient a little longer, but we shall require more than exhortation for that. If he can do certain things we might possibly be able to modify our determination.
If he can give us a timetable now, say that his discussions have now reached a certain stage, that his discussions on both finance and reorganisation will definitely be terminated by a certain date, that a Parliamentary debate will be held on the whole subject of the reorganisation of local government finance by a certain date, that legislation will be introduced in the Session immediately following this—I do not see how he can possibly do it in this one, and we have to be fair; but we should have the required Bill through all its stages in this House by Christmas—if he can give us some idea of how long the whole business will take—for once we have a local government commission going round the country considering these things it may take ten years—if he can give us an assurance that legislation will be on the Statute Book in a certain time and that such legislation as he will recommend to the House will conceive a commission which will not take more than a year to do its job after the Bill is passed; if he can do all that, then we might possibly be able to urge those who are anxious and impatient about this matter to curb their impatience somewhat and feel that their most anxious misgivings are not entirely justified.

Mr. Herbert Butler: Can the hon. Member add another "if"—if the Government will withdraw the Rent Bill, we will support this Measure?

Mr. Iremonger: That is a very straightforward question and the straight answer is, "No".
That is the end of my plea. We want to be quick about this and get an early Division.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. William Stones: My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) said that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) was already prejudiced because he happened to come from the County of Durham. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees can probably refer to me in the same way, because too, come from the County of Durham. I am, of course, prejudiced in favour of my county. I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) in his opposition to the Bill.
I do not profess to be an expert in these matters, but I have had an association with local government affairs for many years, and I can claim some little understanding of human nature. Local authorities consist only of human beings. One of the peculiarities of human nature—and everybody will acknowledge this—is that jealousy between individuals can and does exist. As local authorities consist of human beings, we must, as I have already said, expect to find jealousy between them, particularly between neighbouring authorities and lesser and greater authorities.
Despite all that has been said against jealousy, I suggest that jealousy is not always a bad thing. It largely depends on the circumstances in which the jealousies arise and the extent to which individuals or local authorities are prompted by a jealousy. For instance, it is a good thing that the men and women of this country are jealous of their democratic rights and will fight to the very death to protect them.
It is a good thing too that a democratically elected representative of a local authority should be jealous of the rights

and powers of his authority. In this case between Stockton Corporation and Durham County Council we have an illustration of that which I have attempted to outline. The corporation is seeking an extension of rights and powers unto itself, as it is perfectly entitled to do, whereas Durham County Council is seeking to retain its existing rights and powers, as it is entitled to do. We are being asked to decide between the respective merits of the claims and counterclaims and we should have regard to whether advantage is to be gained by the people of the respective areas.
I know little of Stockton. Of course, I have passed through it.

Mr. Chetwynd: A very beautiful place.

Mr. Stones: Very beautiful indeed, with handsome members. Despite the fact that I know little of Stockton, I sincerely believe—and this is no attempt to eulogise—that the corporation performs its present duties admirably. I also believe, just as sincerely, that the services performed on behalf of the Stockton people by the county council are just as faithfully carried out by Durham County Council. Stockton is well represented on the county council, at least as well represented as is any other electoral area in the county, both numerically and from the point of view of ability. I am sure that if Durham County Council were failing in its obligations towards the people of Stockton, the representatives of Stockton would immediately see that remedial action was taken.
I am given to understand that the granting of borough status to Stockton-on-Tees would mean an excessive reorganisation of the public services. In view of the White Paper of July, 1956, which refers to the duty of local government, and which has been described by hon. Members, I think that the extensive reorganisation which would be required as a result of the passage of this Bill would be rendered null and void by the more extensive reorganisation required when the proposals in the White Paper are put into operation. Therefore, I consider it undesirable that the Bill should be given a Second Reading.
As has already been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring, local authorities


affected should be in agreement. Enough has been said to show that the affected local authorities are not in agreement. I cannot see any reconciliation between Stockton Corporation and the Durham County Council regarding this Bill. There is complete disagreement. It has been said that to wait until the proposals contained in the White Paper are brought into effect would mean a delay of five or ten years or more. I do not think that is so. I think that the reorganisation of local government is very necessary and that it will be forced on us in a short time.
For those reasons I believe that we should reject this Bill. I have not heard anything said by those supporting the Measure which reveals an advantage to either side. I have not been able to discern anything of that kind, and so I believe we should allow the situation to remain as it is. We could do that by rejecting this Bill.

8.3 p.m.

Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer: I do not often speak on local authority matters, so I hope that I may be forgiven for any shortcomings. For various reasons I feel strongly about this matter, but chiefly in the interests of economy and efficiency. I think that our case has been strengthened by the speech of the hon. Member for Houghtonle-Spring (Mr. Blyton), who said that if the Bill were passed it would embarrass those people dealing with the reorganisation of local government. I do not think that it would. I consider that it would have an opposite effect. It would show the feeling of this House in the matter of county borough status.
To me, it is intolerable that borough councils which, in the past, have shown themselves capable of running certain services, should not be allowed to do so. It is intolerable that able, earnest men who understand the problems of their own boroughs should not have a complete say in these matters. The idea of delegation, which has always been put forward as an alternative, is known not to work by those who have had any experience of it. The hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Stones) said that the joint committee did work, although it was clumsy. I cannot think of anything more cumbersome, slow or inefficient.
It is a pity that we have to deal piecemeal with a matter such as this. It would be much better if all boroughs which aspire to county borough status could be dealt with in one Bill. But the Government have brought this on themselves. Successive Governments have brought this sort of thing on themselves because of procrastination. Promises have been given time and again, but the matter has been put off. We have a White Paper before us containing certain proposals. Therefore, although I think it a pity that this should be dealt with in isolation, I nevertheless propose to go into the Lobby tonight in support of the Bill.
I ask my right hon. Friend to pay attention to two points which arise in the White Paper. There is the question of the £100,000 population. Why has this "bid" been put up? The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) produced that figure originally at the time of the Boundary Commission's Report and in his wisdom he finally reduced it to £60,000. I think that it is the "back-room boys" in the Ministry who have inserted that amount in the White Paper and I hope that my right hon. Friend will do what the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale did—reduce the figure; or not necessarily stay at that figure, having regard to all the circumstances, provided that the population is over a certain figure. That is the guiding principle, not the actual number of people living in a town.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at the case made out by these boroughs which, under the old Boundary Commission, now defunct, were recommended for county borough status. They have a strong case, and that of my own constituency is the strongest of the lot.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central): The Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is a compact town on the coast of Durham. It is a rather isolated town. It has a population of 75,500. In the county, and not very far away, there is a smaller county borough represented by my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones). West Hartlepool has a population of 72,000, yet it has county borough status. The town of Stockton has a bigger population, but it has not county borough status.
I know Stockton fairly well, and I know a good many of the councilors there. The hon. Members who represent constituencies in Durham would agree that Stockton has a fine civic life. There is a great deal of civic pride among the people who live there. It is the sort of thing that one finds in a community of that kind, a very old community, a town built around the central core of the market square. In such communities there is a high degree of civic pride. I am sure that in a number of local government areas people could not care less how they are governed but, in a town like Stockton, county borough status would mean a great deal.
I think I am correct in saying that the borough council is 100 per cent. behind this Bill, and that council consists of representatives of both parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) made a long and legalistic speech. I am sure that he did not convince anybody and I do not think that he even convinced himself. The gist of it was that we should stand still pending the consideration of the Government White Paper of July last year.
As many hon. Members have said, a considerable time will elapse before anything is done. The reform of local government would be a very unpleasant thing for any Government to tackle. Everybody in politics in this country knows that a Government cannot do anything unpleasant in the last half of their life and so it is pretty certain that the present Government, who are particularly anxious not to do any more unpleasant things, will not tackle the reform of local government.

Mr. Frederick Willey: They are doing something unpleasant every day.

Mr. Short: It seems to me that we cannot expect anything to be done about the reform of local government for at least another five years. Any Government with any sense which wished to tackle this job would do it in the first year of their life, and so I am pretty certain that it will not be done by the present Government. However that may be, I think it is certain that a good deal of time will elapse, and in the meantime Stockton-on-Tees is growing bigger every year, as the popula-

tion is increasing considerably all the time.
The second point, and it is one that requires emphasising, is that this Bill is merely concerned with status. There is no proposal in the Bill affecting any kind of territorial change at all. The borough is not seeking to take an inch of county territory into its boundaries, and has made no proposal to do that. It is merely concerned with status.
Thirdly, this status, if it were given, would not, so far as I can see, in any way prejudice any wider changes that may take place under the White Paper proposals. I think it is agreed that it would not damage County Durham as an administrative unit because, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, County Durham would still be eleventh out of forty-eight counties in size of rateable value.
If we really believe in local democracy, surely a large, ancient, clearly defined community of this kind should have the largest possible say in running its own affairs? For example, it is surely monstrous that the schools of Stockton-on-Tees should be run from the shire hall twenty or thirty miles away in Durham. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring suggest that the education committee sitting at the shire hall in Durham, consisting of representatives from the dales, Teesdale and Weardale, from Bishop Auckland, Stanley, Consett, Chester-le-Street, consisting of people from all that scattered area of Durham, can run the schools of Stockton-on-Tees any better than can the local people who are already making such an excellent job of running their housing and other services for which they are responsible?

Mr. Stones: Would my hon. Friend suggest that the people in Stanley, Consett or any of the other towns which he mentioned in Durham should be given the educational right that he is proposing for Stockton in respect of the schools run by the Durham County education committee?

Mr. Short: All I am saying is that the people in Stockton-on-Tees, who are making such a good job of running their own services, can surely be entrusted with the task of running their schools and all the other services now being run by the county council.
Hon. Members from the County Durham constituencies outside the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees are opposing this Bill from purely selfish motives. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] All they are concerned with is the loss of rateable value to the county, and nothing else.

Mr. Blyton: That sounds good, coming from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Mr. Short: Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been a county borough for very many years.

Mr. Blyton: And tried to swallow Northumberland and Durham.

Mr. Short: I am not in County Durham and have nothing whatever to do with it, and because of that I can speak impartially about it, which is more than some hon. Members here can do.
If the hon. Members from County Durham really have the interests of local government at heart, they would weigh the loss of rateable value to the county with the gain in vitality in local government, because I think the county will gain rather than lose by it. Durham would suffer a loss of rateable value, but would gain, as my hon. Friend pointed out, in that it would not have so many services to provide. It would not have to provide the services in Stockton. Indeed, although I have not tried to equate the one with the other, I think that in the long run the county would lose very little or that the two would about balance. It would mean that Stockton would gain tremendously in vitality in local government.
Finally, I appeal to all hon. Members of both parties to support the Bill. I believe that there is a great principle involved here. If we really believe in giving big communities of this kind the right to run their own affairs, surely this is the sort of Bill which ought at any rate to be considered by a Committee upstairs.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: Far be it from me to break up the expressions of brotherly love with which hon. Members have been expressing themselves as between borough and county Members—

Mr. Blyton: We do not need the hon. Gentleman's help.

Mr. Williams: —more especially because those hon. Members who have been speaking on behalf of the Durham County Council have made their case in a very laboured and reactionary series of speeches. If one had come into this Chamber uncertain about which way to vote and which side to support, I think that the reactionary nature of the speeches on behalf of the Durham County Council would have persuaded one to go into the Division Lobby, as I shall do, in favour of this Bill. I think that the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) has shown with crystal clarity—

Mr. David Jones: The hon. Gentleman will recognise, of course, that it is impossible for any county Members to speak from that point of view, because there are no county Members.

Mr. Williams: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I am speaking on behalf of 50 per cent. of the Conservative representation in County Durham, and it may well be increased in the near future.
The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees referred to the friction which exists between the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and the Durham County Council. Anyone who knows anything of this matter at all, even from the mountain fastnesses of Sunderland, would know something of the stereotyped approach of the Durham County Council, its desire for centralisation and rigidity of administration. This is the sort of thing which, as has been pointed out, would stifle and prevent good local government, and I would have thought that the arguments which have been deployed both by supporters and opponents of the Bill, if they are serious in their defence of good local government, would, if the hon. Members had stood away from their arguments for a moment, have persuaded them to go into the Lobby in support of the Bill.
On the whole, the things which have been said—to make a slightly partisan point—in support of this Bill constitute one of a most damning, but polite and genteel, condemnations of the Socialist County Council that I have heard for a long time.

Mr. E. Shinwell: That is the trouble.

Mr. Williams: The right hon. Member may well defend centralisation and rigidity.

Mr. Shinwell: It was not that; I am trying to be as impartial and objective as one can in the circumstances, but the hon. Gentleman is provoking me and he had better look out. It will be noted that he has now come to the matter that troubles him, which is that the Durham County Council, unfortunately from his point of view but fortunately from the standpoint of the people of Durham, happens to be a Socialist-controlled council.

Mr. Short: Would the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) and also my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) remember that the borough council of Stockton-on-Tees also happens to be Socialist-controlled?

Mr. Williams: I accept completely the statement of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) that it is a Socialist council, and although I have heard his claim that the borough council of Stockton-on-Tees supported the Bill, I think he will find, on further investigation, that there were two Socialist members of the Durham County Council who opposed the Bill at one stage; and that was the time that they were under party discipline. It is a slightly different picture from the one he tried to convey to the House a few moments ago.
It seems strange that hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House so frequently talk about helping other countries to grow up by giving them self-government when members of a Socialist county council have so vigorously opposed the growing up and the acquiring of self-government by the borough of Stockton-on-Tees. I would have thought that, on the grounds mentioned by the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees, those of size, community of interest and ability to govern its affairs, Stockton-on-Tees was the sort of borough which merited pro-notion from the second division, as the hon. Gentleman said, into the first division and to join Sunderland while it can.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. M. Philips Price: I should not like to interfere in domestic affairs between the County of

Durham and its boroughs. I have no connection with this matter directly but a principle is involved in it which concerns county councils and county boroughs in other parts of the United Kingdom.
It is undesirable to split up areas of local government without very good cause. We have in Gloucestershire an efficient unit of local government, broken in one case by the City of Gloucester, which has very ancient rights going back to the Middle Ages and a Charter from former Kings of England. The county and the city get on very well together. This may be regarded as an argument for breaking up areas of local government, but I do not think it is. These old customs exist, and should be continued, but the splitting up of local government should not be extended without very good cause.
The hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) is not here, but I know his views on this subject. There are people in the borough who would like to see Cheltenham made into a county borough too. All I can say is that both county and borough get on very well. I happen to know that from my experience of the education committee of the county, on which county, village, small-town and borough interests are well represented. The interests of all are well considered. There should therefore be good reason before fresh county boroughs are created.
It has been suggested that the figure of 100,000 population should be taken. That is the considered view of the associations of county councils, district councils, urban councils and rural councils. It is a very reasonable figure, and when the population gets near to requiring two Members of Parliament there may be a case for considering county borough status. So I think it is undesirable, purely on the principle, affecting not one county council but the whole of the country, to give a Second Reading to this Bill. Therefore, I hope that the Bill will not be accepted.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Jack Jones: I have listened carefully to all the arguments, and I was impressed by what the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) said about the pride of local


people who wished to have self-determination. He based this upon the numerical argument that there are about 73,000 people in Stockton-on-Tees. As this is primarily a steel division, and as, in a steel division, one person is equal to one and a half anywhere else, we might be talking about 90,000 or 100,000 people.
Pride of this kind should be supported. Why should not a community decide what is best for itself? I come from a very proud county borough. We do things which we should never do if we had to rely upon a community of interest with the whole of Yorkshire. It may be that Stockton-on-Tees wishes to do for its old-age pensioners something more than the law of averages in the county might otherwise make possible. I represent a community where meals-on-wheels and other facilities for old-age pensioners have been introduced, and have recently been commented upon favourably by the Minister of Health himself.
These things should be approached in a dispassionate way, neutrally. All that Stockton is asking is that it should be allowed to pay for the things it wants. I know that County Durham is a very strong mining area. There are probably 160 people on the county council, about 100 of whom are mining representatives. It happens that Stockton-on-Tees—if my arithmetic is correct—has about six representatives on the county council and are in a minority. How can it expect to get all the things it wants and which are additional to what the law of averages permits? I have had some conversation with people from Stockton-on-Tees and I know that there are difficulties.
I have listened to conversations in this House and I know, for instance, that if Stockton-on-Tees has two or three windows broken somebody has to spend enormous sums of money in ringing up Durham for somebody to replace them. That is complete nonsense. Why should not this community be able to pay for the things which, by unanimous decision, it wishes to do? My researches show that the leader of the Tory Party on the local council is in favour of the Bill as well as the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees.

Mr. Chetwynd: My political opponent is a complete supporter of the Bill.

Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend is also a supporter of it, so we have Socialists and

Conservatives both supporting the Bill. This is a unanimous decision of the community, which wants to levy its own rates and do what it wishes with its own money. I am not trying to decry what the Durham County Council wishes to do, but I have always found, in the trade union movement, local government, church, chapel, club or "pub" that, on the law of averages, those who wish to progress most always suffer.
I speak in the interests of those who wish to serve Stockton-on-Tees and do not wish to be too subservient to the dictates of the county council. We are losing that sort of independence all over the country, and that is not a good thing for the House of Commons or for the nation. It is not the way to bring out the best in people. In the interests of the people of Stockton-on-Tees and of the steel workers, for whom I have a great affection, I am prepared to go into the Lobby in support of the Bill.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I want to bring the Minister's mind back to the Luton Bill, because on the occasion of that debate the right hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill), now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, asked the House to give a Second Reading to that Bill from the back benches while he was a member of the Government. On that occasion I was asked to wind up the debate on behalf of the Luton Borough Labour Party.
Conversations had taken place, and it was agreed that a statement would be made on the Floor of the House to settle the future of Bills for county borough status. That statement is contained in column 712 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 18th March, 1954. The then Minister for Housing and Local Government, now the Prime Minister, said:
This is the last time that I hope either I or my successor will ask the House to refuse approval to a Bill giving county borough status to a local authority solely on the ground that a new prospect is just around the corner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1954; Vol. 525, c. 712.]
I must point out that my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) based his objection to the Bill on precisely those grounds and no other. The Minister is in honour bound to produce some completely new argument to


that advanced by the County of Durham against the Bill.
This is not just a matter between the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees and the Durham County Council. For the purpose of this argument they are both vested interests. It is for the Government to decide on which side they will come down, and the House will help them. The Minister must advance fairly weighty reasons for which the Bill is to be rejected. The reason the Prime Minister gave his pledge in 1954 was that year by year Luton received a heavier vote for its county borough status. I must say quite frankly that, on balance, I think that Luton had a better case than has Stockton-on-Tees. It met all the arguments about population.
I must say, straight away, that I will go into the Lobby for any borough seeking county borough status because I am tired of the procrastinations of successive Ministers on this issue. I have listened to most of them speaking on this issue over a very long time. I would remind my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), a Socialist and an honoured figure in the Labour Government, of something he wrote in his biography, "Call Back Yesterday", which I read with interest, enjoyment and sympathy. Speaking about the Right and Left wings of the Labour Party, he said, "I fly on two wings, but my heart is on the Left." He must consider that carefully before he becomes a county backwoodsman.
Looking back over the history of the changes in local government, I can remember, as probably can the Minister, the first conferences set up under the war under the then Paymaster-General, who later became the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt. I recall these conversations on changes in local government since about 1940. Since then seventeen years have passed. Hon. Members have come with completely fresh minds on the subject and have been provided with a brief from the Durham County Council. They speak airily in terms of another ten or fifteen years. Those of us who have lived with this subject for seventeen years may be pardoned if we hope to hurry a little faster than that. Of course, the County Councils' Association will always oppose such a Measure for the sake of vested

interest—and I do not blame them for this.
What about the proposals which we have had for the reform of local government? I suggest that they are so nebulous that anybody could agree to them. Indeed, the only reason that we have agreement between the local authority associations is that they can all put their own interpretation on them. Again, the vested interests are safeguarded, and all the officials are safeguarded, which is a considerable vested interest. Consequently, I do not pay much heed to the proposals put forward for the reform of local government. As I have said on previous occasions, sooner or later a Minister will have to decide which path local government should follow. It may well be that the Labour Party will itself have to decide a policy for local government, irrespective of the conflicting interests of the county councils, county boroughs, non-country boroughs and county districts, and it will have to be imposed as a pattern for the future. Do not let us be deceived about this.
Another point was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring. If the Bill went through there would have to be joint committees for the police and fire services, but those things are not unique. The local government Boundary Commission envisaged most purposes authorities with the idea of a county borough from which certain services would be excepted. I think we shall have to except the police service from most of the newly-created county boroughs and in some districts we shall have to except the fire brigade, but there is nothing sacrosanct about that. In this case, the local authority is concerned only with prestige. It is already an excepted district for education, which was a compromise solution under the 1944 Act.
On the question of whether Stockton gets a fair crack of the whip, I could use some of the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones). I stand to be corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd), but I believe that there are 116 members of Durham County Council, of whom six represent Stockton, but they represent 10 per cent. of the population. I should have thought that on the ground of democracy it would be a bad argument to suggest that Stockton is well represented. When, on the


Boundary Commission, we were considering Parliamentary constituencies we become overloaded with the curious idea that, somehow, the counties had to be better represented than great cities.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: They are.

Mr. Pannell: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland pushed an extra 16 seats on for the cities because he thought that they were disadvantaged. Does he stand on that now? If so, logic and common interest should drive him into the Lobby to support his former Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Mr. Dalton: I have a great admiration for the knowledge of local government and ingenuity of mind of my hon. Friend, but I think that he is leading us away from the issue before us. At another time I would recommend him to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) did, when I urged him, from the back benches, to do justice to the great towns and their representation in this House; but that has nothing to do with this Bill.

Mr. Pannell: I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland will not bring in my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who is a great advocate for county councils while representing a county borough. No man in this country did more for Surrey County Council than he did. He had a most distinguished career in local government in Surrey, but the electors there did not send him here—

Mr. Ede: I did represent them once.

Mr. Pannell: Of course, my right hon. Friend won a sensational by-election in Mitcham, but at the next Election he was defeated.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Order. I think the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) is getting rather far away from the subject of the Bill.

Mr. Pannell: With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is very difficult to separate these things. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields is President of the County Councils' Asso-

ciation. He is a great advocate and I object to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland interrupting his researches, as he might intend to make a speech.
I suggest that Stockton is completely under-represented. The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs is the worst possible Minister to reply to this debate. There is nothing personal about this. I refer to the right hon. Gentleman only because, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), he was a member of London County Council. To a degree, they are brothers under the skin. London County Council, I beg the Minister to believe, is not local government. It is a curious form of local government—

Mr. Hobson: A bastard type?

Mr. Pannell: —which exercises a sort of overlordship over metropolitan boroughs, giving them only powers which equate to less than those of a rural district council. Therefore, it is difficult for the right hon. Gentleman, with his metropolitan connections and not having the advantages that I have, of representing a great city in the North, to break away from that curious pattern of local government and believe that great places like Stockton want to grow up. Wandsworth and Woolwich are not allowed to grow up. They have to take their sanctions for loans not only from the Ministry, but from County Hall.
I ask the Minister to believe that the real virility of local government is to be found in places like Stockton-on-Tees and that this question of prestige is not something that can be written down. Towns are like persons. They grow from childhood to adolescence, and, finally, reach the adult stage. It is only reasonable that their elected representatives and officials should, at some stage, take complete charge of their affairs.
As I have said before, democracy does not merely consist in the bringing forward of Bills in this House. Democracy is what we do in the various town halls, when we look after our own affairs and when we manage them in the way which seems best to us. Only in that way shall we nourish local government and only by Bills of this sort shall we attract to local


government men of capacity who want to do worthwhile jobs and not act merely as minions of the county hall, many miles away.
I shall vote for the Bill because it is only through the speeches of back benchers who believe in this sort of thing that Ministers in charge of local government will bring in Measures of this kind. Otherwise, we shall see them regarding their office merely as a stepping stone to another more plushier one or to foreign fields. This is a second-rate sort of job and I hope that the Minister—wishing him every success apart from the Rent Bill—will regard it as the aim and purpose of his ambition to nourish local government, and that he will gracefully accept the Bill tonight.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden: I suspect that the Bill has been introduced—and well introduced, if I may say so—because the people of Stockton and their representative here tonight have got very tired indeed of waiting. Unless local government receives some definite pledge as to the time when the Government will introduce legislation there will be a falling away of interest in local government altogether. It will be very difficult indeed to get men of capacity to come forward in the public service if they feel that they are doing a remote service and not, as it were, a service to their fellow men and neighbours.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) referred to the growth of towns from childhood to the adult stage, but, so far as county councils are concerned, and I am an alderman of a county council, I regret to say that their growth has gone from childhood to the adult stage and has thence passed into old age and, in many cases, nearly—

Mr. C. Pannell: To second childhood.

Mr. Lagden: It has gone past second childhood.
Many of the representatives of county councils who carry the county councils' case to the County Councils Association go there so badly briefed and with so little capacity that anything they may produce in the way of advice can very largely be ignored.
Stockton, with a population, as quoted, of 76,000 is, of course, very small fry

indeed compared with the area of Horn-church that I represent, which has a population of 115,000 and which is still an urban district. We have repeatedly asked for borough powers and we have been waiting, even as Stockton has been waiting, and there is little or no doubt that we shall go on waiting. Our vote this evening may not perhaps succeed, but if a vote of sufficient strength is forthcoming, it may jerk into life somebody, somewhere in some Ministry, who has for far too long been sitting on the papers and petitions which he has received from all over the country. We shall this evening have to give an injection to the Ministry by our vote.
There is an enormous amount of jealousy between the younger local areas asking for powers and the old-fashioned county councils. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that when a man of 50 years of age is elected to a county council, very often at least 25 per cent. of the county councillors want to know, "Where did this boy come from?". The qualification on a good many councils is old age. If the capacity has been there before, it is very largely fading. There are exceptional cases, and a particular exception, if I may say so quite sincerely, is the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), whom I see sitting in his place, and for whom I have the greatest admiration.
We must do something. I ask the Minister, when he replies, not to say that he will have consultations with all the individual local authorities and that upon the outcome of those conversations will depend the date when he will do something. Rather I would ask him to say, "I shall consult the local authorities, but I shall set a deadline for the end of those talks". If we can get that sort of promise or assurance from my right hon. Friend this evening, it may well be that we shall not vote too wholeheartedly with Stockton. But I feel, from my own observations of local government and the shocking state which it is getting into as a result of the suspense, that we really ought to do something tonight.
As an illustration, may I give my experience as Chairman of the Local Government Committee for the County of Essex? Time after time, when we hold our meetings at two-monthly intervals, I have to say to my committee, about


items on the agenda, "I think that we should suspend judgment on this matter because of the coming reorganisation of local government". It is not good enough. We must have some sort of assurance that a time limit will be set, and I ask my right hon. Friend to give us that assurance this evening.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) made a most eloquent speech, almost an oration; indeed, it was really a succession of orations. I am not in the least envious, now that I am completely free of political ambition, but I must confess that the bulk of his oration was quite irrelevant to the proposition before the House. He seemed to think that Stockton had a case which was singular, exceptional, and, therefore, deserving on its merits of the consideration of hon. Members.
My hon. Friend's knowledge of local affairs far exceeds my own, although I was for several years a member of a very important corporation in Scotland, but his knowledge does not permit him, so far as I gathered from his speech, to speak with accuracy about local government affairs in the County of Durham and in the adjoining boroughs. If it had, he would have known that, although Stockton may make out a case on the basis of a population of about 75,000 inhabitants for the conferment of county borough privileges, in my own constituency, Where we have had a rural district council for many years, with a population of more than 90,000, that question has not yet arisen. There is very good reason why it has not emerged.
Strangely enough, the argument which appeals to me, as it does, I think, to the county Members, but which has not received very much consideration—I hope that hon. Members on both sides will take note of this—is that there can be very little complaint about the administration of the Durham County Council. Does anyone complain, even the people of Stockton, about the educational schemes promoted by the Durham County Council? They are some of the best in the country. Does anybody complain about what the county council has done to provide better roads and highways? I cannot think of any project undertaken by the Durham County

Council which has been regarded by any of the adjoining boroughs as in any sense detrimental to their social interests.
I admit that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) made, as we expect from him, an admirable speech. The House should hear him much more often than it does, because he is capable of making very good, constructive and informative speeches. Nevertheless, in spite of that, I am bound to say that any argument that can be based on support of Stockton because of any shortcomings on behalf of the Durham County Council does not weigh with me and ought not to weigh with other hon. Members.
I can understand the animus of the hon. Member—for the time being—for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) against the county council, which is Socialist-controlled. The hon. Member must just bear it with fortitude. He will have to bear it with the utmost composure for a long time to come, probably long after he has left this assembly, either voluntarily or under compulsion—I think, under compulsion.
That is the trouble. If hon. Members divest themselves of any prejudice or bias in this matter and treat it, as has been suggested, objectively and impartially, I think that on the facts known to us they are bound to ask for the rejection of the Bill. I regret it, not so much because of the Stockton Corporation, but because of my hon. Friend. We should like to please him and encourage him in his efforts and activities, which, we know, are genuine and sincere; but if the case is based on any shortcomings and limitations of the Durham County Council, there is, I am afraid, no substance in it.

Mr. Short: Who suggested that? My hon. Friend certainly did not. I did not suggest it and I do not know of anybody who did.

Mr. Shinwell: If that is so, what is the case? If it is not based on the limitations and shortcomings of the Durham County Council in the administration of social and local authority affairs, what is the case?
There is general agreement that as soon as may be, as soon as practical and possible, there must be a complete reorganisation and reform of local government. It is easy to talk like that. I


suggest that if every hon. Member were canvassed individually and privately about his views on the reorganisation and reform of local government, we should have more than 600 different varieties of ideas.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West, who knows so much about these matters, talks about the need for action and demands from the Government a statement almost at once, now, tonight, before a decision is reached, on the Government's intentions about local government, I wonder whether he would say sincerely to hon. Members tonight that even the Labour Party is unanimous about the reform of local government.

Mr. C. Pannell: I was making the point that in all this business, and I have been interested in it since 1940, I have seen successive schemes brought forward, and I said that a Government will have to make up their mind and impose a scheme on the local authorities. I am giving my right hon. Friend the point that he has already made.

Mr. Shinwell: I am very grateful. All contributions thankfully received. It substantiates my case.
Of course we have all been pressing for the reform of local government. We have been doing since as long as I can remember. I became a member of the Glasgow Town Council in the early days of the First World War. Even in those days a case was put forward for the reform of local government. on the relations between boroughs and county councils, on the question of whether parish councils should be retained, on the question of whether we should continue to have rural district councils, and on whether there should be any reorganisation as between urban councils and borough councils, and so on. These arguments have been going on for a very long time and no solution has been found, for a very simple reason.
I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Stones) who talked about jealousy among local authorities. It is said that there is so much of it that they do not know where they are or what they want, except that they want to hold on to what they have got. I do not deny that for a single moment. This is, of course, the position of Durham County Council. What is the position of

Stockton Corporation? Is it merely power that they demand? My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) put a point which he thought of great substance. He said, "After all, they should be able to decide what they want. Give the local authorities what they demand." That means that every "tuppeny-ha'penny," pettyfogging council in the county, every urban council, rural district council and parish council should get what they want.

Mr. Chetwynd: I hate to interrupt my right hon. Friend's rhetoric in view of his earlier complimentary remarks, but he should be aware that Stockton is not a "tuppeny-ha'penny" pettyfogging authority and that by an unanimous vote we know what we want. We are dissatisfied with the present arrangement and we want to be on our own.

Mr. Shinwell: Did anyone hear me say that Stockton was a "tuppenny-ha'penny," pettyfogging corporation? Of course I did not say it. I was replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who said, "Give them what they want. That means independence and standing on their own feet."

Mr. Jack Jones: What I said was definitely in relation to the desires of this community of about 78,000 people. I said that the majority of them were worth a man and a half because they are steel workers. I was not concerned with petty-fogging bodies, or interested in a remote parish council or in a dead or dying duck. I said that these people worked to pay the rates and were entitled to spend their own money as best they knew how.

Mr. Shinwell: We all know our hon. Friend's loyalty and that his conviction about the integrity and high quality of steel workers is beyond question. We know that a steel worker is regarded not as a single person but as a man and a half by my hon. Friend, but it is very difficult for me to follow that. The physical difficulties are not easy to overcome. We might submit it to an eminent mathematician. Hon. Members opposite say that they are under physical difficulties but I usually think that they are under mental difficulties. But do not let us have any quarrel. This is a happy occasion. We are arguing these matters out objectively and, of course, without any bias, completely impartially.
Now I come to another point. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West attacked my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland.

Mr. C. Pannell: I warned him. I did not attack him.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend sometimes mistakes harshness of attack for mildness. It does not sound that way to us. At any rate, it seemed to me a most vigorous and bitter attack on my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Pannell: I am very fond of him.

Mr. Shinwell: He attacked my right hon. Friend and accused him of being a county backwoodsman. I do not mind how he describes my right hon. Friend, but he must not include me in that category. I am not a county backwoodsman. I support the Durham County Council in all its activities when it does the right thing. If it does the wrong thing, I say so without hesitation.
Let us come back to the point at issue. It is simply whether, in the circumstances, we should support a Bill which provides for a conferment of borough powers on the Stockton Corporation and divorces it from the county council. Will that be a good thing for the county council? Of course it will not. Who says so? The county council itself, and so do many of us here. If it were put to the people of County Durham, I think that they would say the same.
The second question is: will it be to the advantage of the people of Stockton? Frankly, if I could be led to believe that it was to their advantage, I would support my hon. Friend, but I have not heard yet a single argument which has been addressed to that point. Educationally, socially, in the housing sphere, in highways, in what respect? There is only one argument that has been adduced, if it can be called an argument, and that is that it confers greater powers on them and enhances their prestige. Powers and prestige do not matter much when it comes to material considerations. They are the things that count for the people of Stockton. My hon. Friend represents those people admirably and ably in this House, and I am not sure that they require these powers conferred upon

them in order to make the position of the people of Stockton any stronger than it is.
Now I come to the final consideration. The Minister was told by some of my hon. Friends and hon. Friends on the opposite side of the House—I call them friends—that he must, here and now—mark you, here and now, no time is to be lost, in the course of a debate on a Private Bill—tell us what are the Government's intentions about local government reform. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is about time."] I am satisfied that if the right hon. Gentleman had got up and told us what the Government's intentions are about local government reform, even if he were capable of doing it, even if he were in a position to do it, he would be denounced by my hon. Friends on this side of the House because they would not be in the least satisfied with what he said for the obvious reason that very few people have yet made up their minds about the kind of local government they want in the future. And how can they, in view of the contentions among local authorities, in view of the envies and jealousies and rivalries, and the rest?
No, this question of local government has to be considered very carefully indeed, and it is bound to take time. Of course, they have had plenty of time to consider it, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, when dealing with this matter, encountered many physical and other difficulties and will remember them.

Mr. Dalton: For an even longer time our right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) also had it on his agenda.

Mr. Shinwell: I wonder why my right hon. Friend brought that up? I do not know what may emerge before the night is out. As I say, he encountered not only the physical difficulties, but also the competition and confusion among the local authorities themselves. Therefore, I do not think that we shall elicit anything from the Minister.
It is a great pity that this Bill had to be promoted. I would much rather have seen my friends on the Durham County Council and our friends on Stockton corporation meeting to see whether a rapprochement was possible, and whether there was anything that the County


Council could do more than it was doing at the present time for the Stockton Corporation. That is what I should like to have seen, but it could not be done. So I say quite frankly, although hon. Members may regard me as biassed and prejudiced, as a county council member who represents a division with a huge population far in excess of Stockton with its rural district council, that I have no alternative, much as I should like to support my hon. Friend—and, indeed, the county members in Durham have no other alternative—but to support the Durham County Council.

9.6 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): I deliberately delayed rising to express the Government's point of view on this important Private Bill and I think that the whole House will be glad that I did so, because it has given us an opportunity to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) one of the most delightful and, shall I say, diversionary speeches on the sober and sombre subject of local government to which most of us have ever listened.
I should like to remove any suggestion which may be in the minds of hon. Members that as a Minister I approach a matter like this with any private prejudice. The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) said that I could not be an unbiassed witness because I have been for ten years a member of that great authority, the London County Council. But I would remind him that I have been for twenty years a member of a Metropolitan borough council, and while it is certainly not going to lie in my mouth today to cause any additional friction between local authorities of different types, no one can have served for many years on a Metropolitan borough council without having been occasionally irked by the existence of major authorities in the local government system.
I should like to congratulate, as I am sure will the whole House, the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) on the way in which he introduced this Bill. It is, of course, as he said a misfortune that the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is not represented in the House today by the Prime Minister.

Mr. Chetwynd: I did not say that it was a misfortune. I said that it was the misfortune of an election. I think that it was a blessing, and so does the Prime Minister, otherwise he would not now have a safe seat in Bromley.

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman has set himself to make party amends as well as he can and I should like to join in by saying that he has shown himself today to be a most admirable substitute. I was a little anxious about the future course of the debate when he began by saying that he had no territorial demands. I suspected that we should have a somewhat bellicose atmosphere a little later.
I appreciate that this is not a matter of boundaries; it is purely a question of the status of the Stockton Borough Council. If I sensed the tone of the debate aright, it was set to a large degree by the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees and repeated by a number of other hon. Members that we must proceed, in considering a Bill like this, on the assumption that local government reorganisation was right away over the horizon and therefore as we cannot do the whole thing, we must make a shot at doing what we can.
I think it was the hon. Member who said that it was extremely doubtful whether the Government would deal with local government reorganisation in this Parliament. That view was repeated by a number of other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees, indeed, reminded us of the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during the proceedings on the Luton Bill in 1954, when he expressed the view that that would be the last time that he would have to advise the House to reject a local government Bill.
Very substantial progress has, of course, been made since that statement by the Prime Minister. Since that date we have got a broad measure of agreement among the local authority associations, and we have before us the White Paper containing the Government's proposals. We know that those proposals are generally acceptable to the local authorities. There is the expressed intention of the Government to press forward and in due course to legislate, and only a fortnight ago I said in the House that it was


my hope that we should have a debate on the White Paper as soon as practicable.
Therefore, I suggest that the question which the House has to decide is whether we should give up hope of the general and comprehensive approach, in which so much progress has already been achieved, and turn rather to the piecemeal procedure. There is one thing on which there is agreement between all, both in the House and outside, who have studied the difficult question of local government organisation, and that is that, if it is humanly possible, reorganisation should be comprehensive. I appreciate the views expressed by some hon. Members on both sides of the House that that will not be practicable, that it will be too difficult, that we shall get bogged down again, and therefore that it is not fair to boroughs like Stockton-on-Tees, Ilford, or Luton that they should not be permitted to proceed.

Captain Richard Pilkington: Will my right hon. Friend include Poole, which has a case stronger than any other?

Hon. Members: Nonsense.

Mr. Brooke: I must be careful, as Minister, not to make odious comparisons between one local authority and another, but I will certainly include Poole in the list.
It has been generally accepted in the discussions which have been going on during the last couple of years that claims to county borough status should be looked at comprehensively, and that we should do all we can to work out some machinery by which these claims can be examined on general principles, with, of course, local application, and not singly, in isolation. I suggest that that has special application to the case of Stockton-on-Tees. Stockton-on-Tees is an important borough in itself, but at the same time it is part of the Tees-side built-up area.
I am not going to argue the case for or against the Bill tonight by taking sides in any way between Stockton-on-Tees and Durham County Council. It would be wrong for me to do that, but I would suggest to the House that that is not the only issue to which we should have regard. We must also consider whether it would be right to carve out the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees and make it a county

borough without regard to all the rest of the Tees-side area and the other authorities which hold sway around it. Anybody who looked at a map of England would agree that, especially where there is a substantial built-up area, a particular effort should be exerted to try to get what might be called a local government solution which will apply to that area as a whole and not just to one part of it.
We have a great and perhaps unique opportunity to reorganise local government on a comprehensive basis. The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) described to us how unsuccessful the Labour Government were in that. I grant that up to now the Conservative Government have not seen their way to legislate. At the same time, there has been unanimity among all post-war Governments, regardless of political colour, that we should if possible seek a comprehensive approach, rather than rely on what we all accept as the second best.
In the proposals which have been worked out with the local authority associations, and on which they are broadly agreed, there is provision for considering claims like those of Stockton-on-Tees, Poole, Ilford, Luton and any other boroughs which may press their claims to county borough status. I suggest most strongly to the House that having been patient for these many years, now that we seem to have achieved a greater degree of agreement than ever before, we should hesitate to give a Second Reading to a Bill which inevitably, if passed into law, would prejudge just those questions to which the House as a whole ought to give attention as a whole.
I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House may say that this is just another Minister seeking to fob off the House with one more appeal for patience. I will leave it to the House to judge. My aim is to press forward with all the Government's proposals for local government, covering both reorganisation and finance, and to submit their broad principles to debate in Parliament. I hope to complete everything, including the necessary consultation, in time to have a major local government Bill ready to present to the House next Session.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West said that the agreement among local authorities was, as it were, only the shadow of an


agreement, because the major issues, where there might be a clash were shirked. I cannot endorse that statement, and I think that on reconsideration the hon. Member will feel that he went rather too far. I do not challenge him if he says that in the end some Minister has got to make up his mind and has got to come to definite conclusions, even where the local authorities are unable to agree among themselves. I intend to be that Minister. In seeking to arrive at a comprehensive plan to put before Parliament, I may displease everybody, but I am ready to take the risk, because I believe it to be essential that we should not let local government reorganisation slide. Parliament should be enabled to come to decisions.

Mr. C. Pannell: Can the Minister tell us—[Interruption.]—I have sat throughout the debate and I intervene without the indulgence of the sedentary people who have just dragged themselves into the Chamber. Will the Minister tell us whether he will obstinately stick to the Bill proposed for next Session, or is he likely to give way on a prospective Clause 9?

Mr. Brooke: As one who has already spent the hours today in the Standing Committee considering the Rent Bill I think that I am showing myself ready to stand up to almost anything.
The hon. Member appealed to the House of Commons to nourish life and vigour of genuine local government. I believe that to be precisely the task which lies before us. I hope to present the Bill of which I have spoken; and remembering the motto of Stockton-on-Tees, I may have to call upon the House for a considerable degree of fortitude in examining its lengthy provisions. Having said that, and with no hostility whatever to Stockton, whose claim should, in my view, be judged in the general context and not by itself I advise the House at the end of this long and most interesting debate not to give a Second Reading to the Bill.

9.21 p.m.

Mr. Ede: As—

Mr. Chetwynd: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he would mind not speaking from the Opposition Front Bench? This is a Private Bill, and hon.
Members who have just entered the Chamber and were not present during the debate may think that he is speaking officially on behalf of the Labour Party, which is not so. I think it would be better, therefore, if he did not speak from the Front Bench.

Mr. Ede: My first sentence was going to be that on this matter, as I have indicated in the case of every local government Bill that I have discussed, I speak for myself alone. This is a Private Bill and hon. Members on this side of the House at least are entitled to speak and vote as they please. Nothing that I say this evening will commit any member of the Party, other than those who agree with me.
I wish to join with the Minister in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) on the way in which he urged the Second Reading of this Bill. Everyone who heard him will agree that he said everything that could be said in favour of the Bill, and in the best possible form and style. I am quite certain that the Minister shares with me the view that the House has this evening shown a great amount of impatience about the way in which this general matter has been handled over the post-war period.
I was undecided whether the best thing would not be to get this Bill before a Select Committee so that the Government would have to face the issue about what is to happen. I assume that when the right hon. Gentleman tells us that he hopes to introduce a Measure during the next Session of Parliament, a general local government Measure, he has the assent of his colleagues in the Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] If the right hon. Gentleman does not deny it, I shall assume that he has the assent of his colleagues. He is an experienced Member of this House, and he would not have made such a statement through a mere slip of the tongue. I assume that it represents a pronouncement of Government policy. Though I can speak for myself from this Dispatch Box, it is difficult for a member of the Government to speak for himself from that Dispatch Box.

Mr. Brooke: I should like to make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that I


was speaking for the Government. I used the words, "I hope" to allow for the changes and chances of mortal life.

Mr. Ede: The present Prime Minister said in 1954, that he was speaking for himself, or his successor, when he hoped that it would be the last time any Member of the Government would have to ask the House to vote against one of these Bills merely on the ground that the time was not opportune.
On the assumption, and on that assumption only, that it is the fixed determination of the Government to introduce a general Bill in the next session of Parliament, I shall feel that tonight I can safely vote against this Bill. It would suit me to embarrass the Government and get this Bill sent to a Committee upstairs so that some time would have to be devoted by the Government to presenting a case upstairs to destroy the Bill, but I think it more important that we should be able to proceed by general agreement to the consideration of a general local government measure than that we should play party politics here this evening.
For that reason alone, I shall vote against the Bill tonight because I take the right hon. Gentleman at his word and believe that, somewhere towards the end of this year, we shall have a Message from the Throne indicating that a general local government measure will be brought in front of us, and that we shall have an opportunity of considering it during the Session that will then be commencing. In saying that, I want to assure my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees that I am doing nothing other than speaking for myself.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. David Jones: The debate on this Private Bill has taken the usual line that debates on Private Bills have taken in this House for a long period of years, with the same exceptions. In former years, Private Bills in this House have resulted in borough Members speaking in support, and, with the honourable exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who is a borough member, and who opposes this Bill, the opposition to such Bills has invariably been made by county Members, and indeed, almost in the same language.
The Minister, in fact, gave the same kind of undertaking that the Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Housing and Local Government, gave in 1954. I remember that in that debate the Luton Corporation Bill challenged the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Prime Minister, and it will be found in HANSARD, to say that he would produce a Bill in the lifetime of that Parliament. He did not introduce it in that Session of the 1950 Parliament. He did not introduce it in the second Session. We are well into the second Session of the new Parliament, and now we are being told by the present Minister of Housing and Local Government that he proposes to bring in a Bill next Session to do—what?
If he accepts the implications of the White Paper, the most that he can do will be to introduce a Bill to set up a local government boundary commission, and that body will take at least several years to reach conclusions before he can begin to introduce legislation to make any substantial alterations in local government. Therefore, I do not regard the right hon. Gentleman's undertaking to introduce a Bill in the next Session of Parliament as doing anything more than what the Royal Commission will do in the case of the doctors' salaries—put the matter off to a more convenient time.
The Durham County Council and my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) have said that this was not the right time. That is what the Durham County Council said in 1951 in connection with the Sunderland Corporation Bill, when Sunderland had to modify considerably its request for the territory it required from the County of Durham for building houses in order to secure that the opposition to its Bill was withdrawn.

Mr. Blyton: Surely my hon. Friend knows that the Sunderland Bill was an extension Bill, and not one for county borough status?

Mr. Jones: I am well aware of that, but the argument used by Durham County Council at that time was that it was not the appropriate time to introduce a local government Bill to alter boundaries. Two years later the West Hartlepool Bill was before the House, and precisely the same reply went out from Durham County Council. One is


entitled to ask, when will be the right time? Have these and other municipal boroughs to wait for an indefinite period?
It was the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government himself who said, on 12th February:
With this change, local authorities will acquire a great increase of responsibility."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1957; Vol. 564. c. 1083.]
He was talking about the changes he proposed in the basis of local government grants, but surely, not only in that respect, but in every other, local authorities are entitled to acquire new responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring was a little bit finicky when he accused Stockton of besmirching Durham County Council.

Mr. Blyton: It is quite true.

Mr. Jones: Nobody wants to do that. Anybody who knows Durham County Council recognises that, within the limitations imposed upon a county council and considering the area that it has to cover, Durham County Council does as good a job as most other county councils, if not a better job.
Nevertheless, difficulties arise because of distances. I have here correspondence in which the medical officer of health for the County of Durham actually objected—and so did the county architect—because the medical officer of health for Stockton placed an order with a firm in Stockton for the replacement of a cistern in the staff lavatory of the nursing school within the borough of Stockton. That kind of thing is bound to cause difficulty, by its very nature. [Laughter.] I do not want to pursue this matter, but it would have caused serious difficulties had the medical officer of Stockton not acted witih promptitude.
The White Paper on local government reform, to which the Minister referred, was also referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring. He quoted certain passages from it, but not from paragraph 28, which says:
An essential qualification for promotion to county borough status must be the fitness of the authority concerned to discharge the functions of a county borough.
Can anybody who heard my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) deny that the borough of

Stockton has proved that is is capable of discharging the duties of a county borough?
The White Paper continues:
In determining this, a number of factors have to be taken into account, such as population, resources and administrative record.
Does anybody challenge the administrative record of Stockton? When my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was speaking I was reminded that the borough of Stockton has already erected a large number of houses. Stockton Borough Council has proved its capacity to undertake the duties of a county borough council.
We have been told that Stockton-on-Tees has not the necessary population to qualify for this step. If we examine the tremendous increase in population in Stockton-on-Tees over the past few years we recognise that in the very near future it will reach that magic figure of 100,000.
When the Minister talked about Stockton-on-Tees he made a point about Tees-side. It is not without significance that whereas the conurbation on Tyneside is mentioned, there is no mention in the White Paper, nor was it ever suggested by the Boundary Commission of 1947, as far as I know, that there should be one of those authorities for a conurbation on Tees-side, unless it be on the other bank of the Tees. Possibly the right hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that the borough of Stockton-on-Tees is on the north bank of the Tees and not on the south bank, where lie Middlesbrough and the other conurbations.

Mr. H. Brooke: I was not seeking to argue whether Tees-side was or was not a conurbation, if we have to use that dreadful word, but rather that Stockton is part of a built-up nucleus and that this was a special reason for not treating its problem in isolation.

Mr. Jones: An interesting factor in that connection is that a good deal of virgin territory lies between Stockton and the sea. One of the arguments advanced upstairs against the West Hartlepool Bill, which sought to extend the boundaries, was that the territory which lies between Stockton and West Hartlepool is appropriately administered by the county. I suggest that the Minister cannot have it both ways.
My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring referred to police and fire service powers. Again, what he omitted to mention was that an arrangement is already in existence within the County of Durham whereby the county borough of West Hartlepool and the county borough of Darlington both have agreements with the Durham County Council and there is one police force operating for those county boroughs as well as for the county. That was in existence long before my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) introduced his Police Bill, in 1946. When he was Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields also introduced the Fire Services Bill, in 1947, and he envisaged that it might be desirable in certain parts of the country to have this type of agreement. In Committee upstairs he argued that it was desirable, in certain circumstances, that there should be agreements of this nature.

Mr. G. A. Pargiter: It is not within my recollection that my right hon. Friend argued that a new force should be created by that type of agreement. He merely said that where there were existing vested interests that type of agreement might be used.

Mr. Jones: In this case no new force is being created. All that Stockton is saying is that for the purpose of convenience and greater efficiency it would be prepared to have one joint fire service for the envisaged county borough of Stockton and the Durham County; and the powers to provide that were already envisaged by my right hon. Friend when he introduced his Measure in 1947. In that respect, there would be no difficulty whatever.
The borough of Stockton has six representatives on the Durham County Council out of a total membership of 116. May I here say a word about finance? It is true that if this Bill becomes law, and Stockton becomes a county borough, it will take certain rateable values from the County of Durham. Of course, it will reduce the produce of a 1d. rate in the administrative country, but it will take away corresponding responsibilities.
For example, there are 14,000 elementary school children residing within the borough of Stockton whose education

now is the responsibility of Durham County Council education authority. When Stockton becomes a county borough that responsibility, and the responsibility for the whole of the staff employed in that area, will be transferred from Durham County Council to the new education authority of Stockton-on-Tees.
There are 600 children from without the borough of Stockton attending Stockton secondary schools, but it is not without interest to record that at present there is being erected outside the borough boundaries of Stockton a new technical grammar school which will cater for those 600 children. Whatever happens about this Bill those 600 children will be transferred to a school within the administrative county. That presents no problem at all.
If Stockton-on-Tees becomes a county borough it will take away from the administrative County of Durham £826,827 worth of rateable value, but it will still leave Durham with nearly £7 million worth of rateable value. It is interesting to recall that with Stockton within the administrative county it is the eleventh richest county of the 48 counties in England, apart from Wales and Scotland. Although it would take £826,000 of rateable value, Durham would remain the eleventh richest authority on rateable value.
Even assuming that extensive changes took place in the administrative county of Durham—if Hartlepool were conceded to West Hartlepool, the Urban District of Billingham were transferred to Stockton, if Jarrow Hebburn and Felling were transferred to the Tyneside conurbation and Sunderland rural district transferred to the borough council while Stockton was taken from the county, the administrative county would still be left with £2½ million rateable value. That would be a higher rateable value than 29 other counties.
How, then, can it be argued that if Stockton is taken from Durham County, the administrative capacity of Durham will be destroyed? It certainly will not do that. Already, there are in existence 20 county boroughs with a smaller population than the present population of Stockton-on-Tees. There are two county boroughs within the County of Durham with a smaller population than that of Stockton-on-Tees. Therefore, to deny to


Stockton-on-Tees the right to become a county borough now that it has promoted a Parliamentary Bill is tantamount to saying that we ought to take county borough status from those 22 authorities. That seems to be the argument which is advanced. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] My hon. Friend says, "Hear, hear." Naturally, that is what the county desires. [Interruption.] There are another 15 minutes in which I could address the House, Mr. Speaker, and if I am interrupted any more I will inflict myself upon it for another 14½ minutes.
I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that all we should be doing tonight, if we gave a Second Reading to the Bill, would be to give assent to the principle contained in it. The Bill could then go upstairs to be examined by an impartial Select Committee, and that, it seems to me, is the proper way in which to deal with the Bill. It is quite wrong that we in this House should prejudge the merits of the case based very largely on documents received either from the borough of Stockton or from the County of Durham.
Most of the borough Members in the House have been briefed by the borough of Stockton and all the county Members have been briefed by the respective county councils. It seems to me to be quite wrong for us to decide the merits of the Bill and for our decision to be based on prejudiced views before the debate started.
Let us give the Bill a Second Reading tonight and then let the Select Committee decide whether or not Stockton has made out its case to be given county borough status.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. G. A. Pargiter: I think that we ought really to get this argument into perspective. As has been said, this is not particularly an argument against Stockton-on-Tees as such or its capacity to govern itself. The argument is concerned with the timing of the Bill, especially in relationship to the relatively short time in which Stockton has attained a population of 75,000, which is a necessary qualification under the law as it stands at present, as compared with a number of other authorities which because of the progress that has been made on the general background of the problems of reorganisation, have agreed, at

this juncture at any rate, not to promote Bills. Many authorities equally as capable and larger than Stockton-on-Tees feel that the present time is inopportune to do so.
I want to draw the attention of the House to what the result would be if the Bill received a Second Reading, quite apart from what happened to it in Committee upstairs. I should be interested to know at this stage whether any hon. Members have received a brief from the Association of Municipal Corporations on the matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The answer is "No", the reason being that the A.M.C. is acting with greater circumspection and caution in the matter than is Stockon-on-Tees.

Mr. Chetwynd: The reason is that we feel that our case is strong enough and does not need outside associations to support it. Had my hon. Friend been present during the whole of the debate he would have heard all these points answered.

Mr. Pargiter: Whether the points are answered or not, the fact remains that if the House prejudges the tentative agreement arrived at between the associations which provides that the minimum population for borough status, except in exceptional circumstances, should be 100,000, we might as well give up so far as co-operation between the various associations is concerned because the A.M.C. would say that it is no longer concerned with a population of 100,000 because the House of Commons has decided on a free vote that the figure is to be 75,000.
It will be a serious matter if the House decides to jeopardise the large measure of agreement which has been arrived at on the problems of local government reorganisation, and I say that with respect to all points of view in the matter. I want to say as strongly as I can that if at this stage the House indicates that what the associations have agreed as being a reasonable basis for the future of local government as regards size of population, etc., for county borough purposes is to be prejudged at this juncture, it is fairly obvious that the negotiations will not get very far. How the Minister would be able to introduce a Bill which the authorities would after that accept as taking them back to where


they were before negotiations started, I really do not know.
It seems to me that, with a sense of responsibility, the House must reject the Bill at this stage. It must have regard to other authorities, larger and more influential, perhaps, than Stockton, which have decided that the present time is not opportune for the promotion of Bills. I can refer to at least five boroughs in the County of Middlesex which have decided, whilst still making representations, not to introduce Bills to prejudge an issue which they feel ought to be dealt with on its merits impartially in Parliament so that the future of local government will not be bedeviled as it has been for so long by the promotion and the rejection of Bills.
I am surprised that Stockton felt it desirable to spend the amount of money necessary for the promotion of a Bill at this stage, having regard to all the factors. In the light of the fact that borough Members have not been circularised by the A.M.C. in support of this proposition, one must assume that the A.M.C. is not necessarily in support of it at the present time, especially since it would wish to honour the arrangement which it has come to.
I urge that the Bill be rejected. I say that not out of any lack of respect for Stockton-on-Tees, but because the time of the introduction of the Bill is so inopportune.

9.52 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Cooper: I am in a somewhat difficult position tonight because my own authority has, since 1950, promoted Bills in successive years in an effort to achieve borough status, and every year we have been fobbed off with one excuse after another. In the days when the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) was in office, we were told that a review was taking place, and that at some indeterminate date we should be given consideration and perhaps given the status that we wanted.
Two years ago, almost by one of the mishaps of Parliamentary procedure, Ilford succeeded in getting the Second Reading of its county borough Bill. Subsequently, we were pressed to withdraw it on the assurance that this review was going to take place. Still nothing hap-

pened. We have had a White Paper, and certain suggestions of agreement between the local government associations have been made; but in spite of all that the Minister has so far said, we have no real evidence or proof that the local government associations are in any real harmony whatsoever on this subject.
I should feel much happier about the whole situation if I felt that the County Councils Association, which I regard as the most reactionary body in local government in this country, had any real desire to see any reform of local government organisation. I am not in fact convinced that we have brought the county councils to any sort of stage where we can look for any support or help from them in what we are seeking to do.
Notwithstanding all that I have said, we have tonight had from the Minister the first positive statement of action by the Government in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said that it has changed his view, and he will vote tonight in a manner opposed to the action taken by him in previous years.
Before I came into this debate, I assured the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) that I would support the Bill, but having regard to the statement that my right hon. Friend the Minister has made I feel that I should be acting with a sense of irresponsibility if I voted for the Bill tonight, knowing that it stands no chance whatever of getting a Third Reading.

Mr. C. Pannell: Neither did Ilford's Bill. We supported the hon. Member then. Why does he "rat" on us now?

Mr. Cooper: I have endeavoured to explain why I feel that I must take this action. The hon. Member will admit that I am not afraid to speak in this House against the Government when I feel that I must do so. Equally, there are occasions when I feel that I must support the Government, and tonight happens to be one of those occasions.
I still feel that having regard to the fact that the Minister has made a positive statement that in the next Session of Parliament legislation is to be introduced, I should support my right hon. Friend. I should, however, like to ask him one question. In the legislation which he proposes to introduce, does he embody the


financial reforms of which he spoke a week or so ago or is it his intention that the financial reforms shall be introduced during the present Session?
I ask that for this reason. It is astonishing how quickly the Treasury can act when it wants money. It was very easy for the Valuation and Rating Bill to go through, because the Treasury was to get about £10 million extra revenue, but because the Treasury would lose a lot of money on the rerating of industry there had in that case to be deferment for a

couple of years. Therefore, I want to know whether it is the Government's intention to embody the financial reforms in their legislation next Session or whether they intend to introduce the financial reforms during the present Session.

Hon. Members: Answer.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 95, Noes 201.

Division No. 73.]
AYES
[9.58 p.m.


Aitken, W. T.
Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Redhead, E. c.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Hoy, J. H.
Reeves, J.


Awbery, S. S.
Hubbard, T. F.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Bence, C. R (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Hynd, H. (Acorington)
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Benson, G.
Iremonger, T. L.
Ross, William


Boardman, H.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Royle, C.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Janner, B.
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Short, E. W.


Braddook, Mrs. Elizabeth
Johnson, Erio (Blackley)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Brockway, A. F.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Skeffington, A. M.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)


Burke, W. A.
Kenyon, C.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Kerr, H. W.
Sparks, J. A.


Coldrick, W.
King, Dr. H. M.
Steele, T.


Collins, V. J. (Shereditoh &amp; Finsbury)
Lawson, G. M.
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Wade, D. W.


Edwards, Rt. Hon, Ness (Caerphilly)
Logan, D. G.
Warbey, W. N.


Fienburgh, W.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Wheeldon, W. E.


Forman, J. C.
McInnes, J.
Wigg, George


Gibson, C. W.
Mahon, Simon
Wilcock, Croup Capt. C. A. B.


Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Wilkins, W. A.


Grimond, J.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Willey, Frederick


Hale, Leslie
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Hannan, W.
Mason, Roy
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
Maude, Angus
Winterbottom, Richard


Healey, Denis
Orbach, M.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Herbison, Miss M.
Oswald, T.
Zilliacus, K.


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)



Hobson, C. R.
Plummer, Sir Leslie
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Holmes, Horace
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Mr. D. Jones and Mr. Chetwynd.


Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Probert, A. R.





NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Delargy, H. J.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Brooman-White, R. C.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.


Alport, C. J. M.
Bryan, P.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathooat (Tiverton)
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.


Anstruther-Cray, Major Sir William
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Arbuthnot, John
Carr, Robert
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)


Armstrong, C. W.
Champion, A. J.
Errington, Sir Eric


Ashton, H.
Channon, Sir Henry
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Atkins, H. E.
Chichester-Clark, R.
Fisher, Nigel


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Clarke, Brig, Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Fletcher, Eric


Baldwin, A. E.
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert
Fletcher-Cooke, C.


Balniel, Lord
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)


Barlow, Sir John
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Barter, John
Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Gibson-Watt, D.


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Glover, D.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Godber, J. B.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Cronin, J. D.
Gooch, E. G.


Bidgood, J. C.
Crouch, R. F.
Gower, H. R.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Currie, C. B. H.
Graham, Sir Fergus


Bishop, F. P.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Crant, W. (Woodside)


Body, R. F.
Dance, J. C. G.
Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.(Nantwich)


Boyd, T. C.
Davidson, Viscountess
Green, A.


Braine, B. R.
Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)
Gresham Cooke, R.


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Grey, C. F.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Deedes, W. F.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)




Gurden, Harold
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Redmayne, M.


Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvll (Colne Valley)
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Ridsdale, J. E.


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Rippon, A. G. F.


Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)


Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Roper, Sir Harold


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Maddan, Martin
Russell, R. S.


Hayman, F. H.
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Sharples, R. C.


Hesketh, R. F.
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Marshall, Douglas
Sorensen, R. w.


Holman, P.
Mathew, R.
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Hornby, R. P.
Mawby, R. L.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Howard, John (Test)
Mellish, R. J.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Stones, W. (Consett)


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Sylvester, G. O.


Hunter, A. E.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Hurd, A. R.
Nairn, D. L. S.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Temple, J. M.


Irvine, Bryant Codman (Rye)
Neave, Airey
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. C. A.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Jeger, George (Goole)
Oakshott, H. D.
Thornton, E.


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Joseph, Sir Keith
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)
Turner, H. F. L.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot
Osborne, C.
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Keegan, D.
Page, R. G.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Kimball, M.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Lagden, G. W.
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Vickers, Miss J. H.


Lambton, Viscount
Pargiter, G. A.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Leather, E. H. C.
Parker, J.
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Leburn, W. G.
Partridge, E.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Pearson, A.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Peart, T. F.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Pentland, N.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Whitelaw, W. S. I. (Penrith &amp; Border)


Linstead, Sir H. N.
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Wills, C. (Bridgwater)


Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Pott, H. P.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Longden, Gilbert
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Lucas, P. B. (Brentford &amp; Chiswisk)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)



Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


MacColl, J. E.
Ramsden, J. E.
Sir Henry Studholme and




Mr. Blyton.

HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION BILL

Again considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 15.—(REPEALS.)

Amendment proposed, in page 9, line 10, leave out subsection (3).

Question again proposed, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—

10.6 p.m.

Mr. Hale: I was struggling, I am afraid unsuccessfully, just before seven o'clock, to bring my remarks to a close when time, like an ever-rolling stream, swept me into the non-county Borough of Stockton-on-Tees. It is such a long time ago that I feel I might almost ask for the indulgence of the House for my remarks after this long interval. Indeed, I am in the difficulty that I am not quite sure what I said. I thought that it was rather good as far as it went, but I am not sure where I had got to.
I think that I had got to the geographical point, which is interesting, because,

as I understand the present situation, it is that if a clergyman is a clergyman of the Church of England in England, he is disqualified, but if he receives a benefice in Wales he is not disqualified. If that be so, and if his bishop does not like him in Parliament, he only has to promote that clergyman to a benefice in England to disqualify him again. That seems to me to be a singularly unfortunate opportunity for one of their Lordships to interfere in House of Commons affairs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) was referring to the possible necessity, which may not be directly material, of removing the clergy from another place. Personally, I am in favour of removing another place from the clergy. But that, of course, is a point of view which I would not wish now to expand. The hon. Member for Basingstoke, in a dissertation which we all listened to with respect, because he always speaks informatively—and I think the hon. Gentleman had some support from our side of the Committee—


was dealing with a wholly irrelevant proposition.
It is not for us to decide whether it is desirable for the Church to have members here. It is not for us to decide—and I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) for not giving way; I was pressed for time, but time alters all things—whether it is desirable for the Church of England to have ministers here or for the Roman Catholic Church to have priests here. It is for us to consider whether it is right for us to say that they are ipso facto debarred.
That is the material question. I could well understand that Convocation might say, "No, we do not want this." I could well understand Convocation saying, "We do not want clergy to be engaged in controversial disputes in the House of Commons." I would not agree with them. I think it is desirable that they should be. If hon. Members will only think for a minute, they will see why. When my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) with perhaps a shade less than his usual tact, said that two previous speakers had been talking tommy-rot, how salutary it would have been had a clergyman in this House listened to his speech and said:
Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
It may well be that in recent debates observations could have been made better by a clergyman. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East said, "Well, of course, we know that there are anomalies, but this is not the time for dealing with anomalies". One of our troubles is that it is never the time for dealing with anomalies in this House. Almost everyone who has spoken has said that it is unjust. But supposing that a priest or a clergyman had got up and said:
That which the palmerworm bath left bath the locus eaten"—
he might well have drawn the attention of the hon. Member for Islington, East to the material point that it is the job of this House to deal with anomalies and to take advantage of such opportunities as offer.
Speaking seriously, I would say this. I do not believe that in a House which begins its labours with Prayer, in a House

which is the legislative body of a Christian country, it is right for us to say that there is something in the office of a clergyman which debars him from taking part in our deliberations. I do not often make a personal boast, but one of the things of which I am proud is to have the honour of the friendship of distinguished members of three Churches—of a former President of Conference, of a bishop of the Catholic Church and of a canon of the Church of England. I cannot think that this House would be weaker if we had the benefit of their advice from time to time. In any event, it is for them to decide whether they would wish to come. It is not for us to say that because of their sanctity, because of their holy orders, and because of their devotion to the ethics of life they are not competent to take part in controversy, or that they would weaken this House if they came here. I feel that this is an issue of importance.
I think that it was the hon. Member for Bermondsey who said that there was no demand for it. But that never is an argument.

Mr. Mellish: I have not spoken yet.

Mr. Hale: I am not accusing my hon. Friend of having taken the vow of silence. I am sure that he will not be inhibited. It is not for us to say that. We have no right to say it.
In conclusion, I only want to say that I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley for suggesting that perhaps my recollection at some event about the late Reverend Horne Tooke was inaccurate. He said that I said—I am not sure that I said it—that the House of Commons did not take action soon after his election. The House of Commons had been very well aware of the Reverend Horne Tooke and his candidature for many years. In point of fact, he was summoned to the Bar of the House for a libel on the Speaker. He was prosecuted for sedition and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for seditious political attacks.
The hon. Member for Dudley may well recall the situation. The Reverend Horne Tooke devised a subscription for the suffering people of Lexington, who had been attacked by British troops.


There is a recent historical parallel to that which I need not go into now. He was dealt with very seriously, fined £200 and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, and he always attributed the gout from which he suffered in later life to the claret which he drank while in prison.
He stood as Parliamentary candidate for Westminster, against Charles James Fox. There is a famous case in which Fox sued him for his election expenses. The Reverend Home Tooke made a speech in which he told the jury, "We hire the Lord Chief Justice and the ushers to keep order, but not to interfere in the merits of the matter." That is a speech which I have always wanted to make myself in the courts, but have never yet found an opportunity of doing so. After that, he stood again and was defeated before his eventual election in 1801, and even then the House did not say that he was disqualified.
The House passed an Act which said that he was disqualified from further election. There was no question that that Act was passed as a punitive measure against him and for no other reason. No one can suggest that this matter was discussed on high theological grounds, or with any reference to the canon law. That is the situation as I see it.
10.15 p.m.
The only argument put forward which impressed me, if I may say so with all courtesy, was that of the hon. Member for Islington, East, who said that perhaps it was objectionable that a matter of high State principle should be decided in the form of a minor Amendment to a Bill which is substantially agreed. I could have wished that this matter had been raised as a substantive matter and had been discussed at length and considered only after consultation with the appropriate body. However, it is true to say it has been fairly well canvassed in the years which have gone by. There was the unhappy case of Mr. MacManaway, who finally lost his seat after much legislation. The arguments were then fully gone into. It is true, and clear, that up to the last minute there was a good deal of doubt about how that issue might be decided, and it was certainly an arguable point.
So we are left in the condition that some clergy are definitely disqualified,

some clergy are definitely not disqualified, and others are in very grave doubt as to whether they are qualified or not. I remember the present Minister of Education, in the days before he was First Lord of the Admiralty, and in the days before he was a noble Lord, arguing that one of my hon. Friends must be disqualified because, although a Nonconformist, he had been consecrated by the hands of a bishop and that that must bring him within the purview of the Act. That view was not accepted at the time, but it is evidence of the fact that there can be a great deal of controversy about the matter.
I would also say a word about the Roman Catholic priesthood. As I understand, the reason that was given for excluding Roman Catholic priests from this House is—the argument of the Established Church does not apply to them; there is the academic argument that the Church of England is established, but it is purely academic that it is established—was that of Titus Oates, the argument that here are clergy who owe some allegiance to a head of State who does not live in this country.
I am trying to put this as fairly and as moderately as I can, and also as inoffensively as I can, but it was an offensive argument against the Catholic Church, and we should not repeat it. It is not right today to say that people are disqualified for reasons like that. Of course, it is for the hierarchy to say whether they would wish Catholic priests to come into this House. That is entirely their concern. But is it right for us to say that they are disqualified because they are in holy orders, because they are priests, and because they are persons consecrated to the service of mankind?
Therefore, although I could have wished that the matter had been raised in another form, if my hon. Friends think it necessary to press the matter to a Division I shall feel compelled to support them in the Lobby. I feel that we have not the right to exclude people merely because they are men of high character, devoted to human service, many of them with profound knowledge of political conditions and with a distinctive contribution to make to our discussions in the House which, I think, might raise and improve the tone of our debates.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: I can understand the predicament in which the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) finds himself. Earlier in the day there were twenty Amendments in his name and he was not here to deal with any of them, and so he has had to make his speech at this time of night.
I am not interested in fighting the battle of the clergy. I am not interested in whether the clergy come into the House or not.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order, Sir Charles. If the hon. and gallant Member is not interested in the clergy, how can he speak on a question which deals specifically with them?

The Chairman: That is what I was wondering, for the Amendment is about clergy.

Brigadier Clarke: I did not hear what the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said, but I am sure that it was irrelevant. I did hear what you said, Sir Charles. I did not hear the hon. Member's objection.
I am not concerned about whether clergy conic to the House or not. I think that anybody who has a contribution to make ought to be able to do so. The point that I am interested in raising tonight is that nearly seven years ago the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) did his very best to stop me entering the House by trying to suggest that I was disqualified because I was a soldier. Nevertheless, against every obstacle he put in my way, I was elected to the House. At that time, when he was trying to stop soldiers from coming to the House, he considered that soldiers ought to resign from the Army before they came here.

The Chairman: Whether they ought to resign or not, they do not come under the Amendment.

Brigadier Clarke: I may be skating on thin ice—[Laughter.]—nevertheless, if hon. Members opposite remain quiet for a moment, I think I shall make myself clear. The fact remains that no soldier, while still serving, can come to the House. He is disqualified, but an engine driver or a doctor working for the nationalised Health Service—

The Chairman: I must warn the hon. and gallant Member that if he does not accept my Ruling, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.

Brigadier Clarke: I bow to your Ruling on the matter, Sir Charles, but I feel that a soldier has as much right as a doctor or an engine driver to be a Member of the House of Commons.

Mr. Mellish: I want to revert to the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). He argued with his usual brilliant logic and I do not deny that it was the sort of case which would appeal to most hon. Members on the basis of logic. He said that he had forgotten what he had said earlier, but I took the trouble to remember much of it.
Earlier he had argued that he thought that it would be a good thing for priests of the Church of Rome and ministers of the Church of England to come to the House to express their viewpoints on war and matters of that character. He felt that it was right that in a democracy such as ours those people should have the right to become Members of Parliament. I fully understand that.
However, matters of this kind, as with so much of what goes on in this Britain of ours, are not as logical as that. We cannot wrap up democracy in small parcels and say that it is neatly done and that is how it works. We cannot do it as easily as that. My hon. Friend referred to certain clergymen coming to the House of Commons and making speeches on particular subjects, and said that they might be welcome in the cause of democracy.
I want it to be known—and this is a personal observation and I do not ask anybody to share it—that I should he utterly appalled if I faced one of the priests of my own Church on the benches opposite attacking something of which I was deeply in favour from a party point of view. Let us be realistic about this. The theory is that clergymen of the Church of England or priests of the Catholic Church can come here and express independent viewpoints. What stuff and nonsense that is. Whom are we kidding? One cannot become a Member of Parliament without being associated with a political party. We all know that. There is not a single inde-


pendent Member in the House. No one can get here on the basis of being an independent Member. How long that will last, none of us knows, but that is the position today, and any clergyman who stands for Parliament will have to run on what is known as a party ticket.
I will be straight about this. I believe that in the House of Commons there are already people who are elected on the basis of religion in itself. I do not want to be offensive about this and I give this as an honest opinion. There are hon. Members from Northern Ireland who would not be in the House tonight if elections there were fought on an honest, decent, democratic basis, with no religion involved. That is a fact because religion is the one issue raised, and that alone is the sort of issue which should not be involved.
Just imagine the position if the local Labour candidate or the local Tory candidate were, say, a Catholic priest. I cannot imagine anything worse than an Election being fought under those conditions. I know the logical mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, and he has put on record what he thinks. What about the anomaly that certain types of clergyman are allowed to become Members of this House? I do not wish to be offensive to anyone and I hope that I shall not offend hon. Members, but it is an extraordinary thing that while we would object so much to seeing our own priests as Members of Parliament, it is not the same thing if there are Members who are priests of other denominations. I hope that hon. Members will understand me, but I do not find it at all unpleasant to see priests of other denominations in the House.

Brigadier Clarke: Brigadier Clarke rose—

Mr. Mellish: No, I cannot give way to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. It seems stupid to give way to him.
There are some hon. Members who sit on this side of the House who are associated with Churches. I have the deepest respect for them, and I understand why they are in this House. I am glad that they are here. But having said that, I must also say that I believe this proposed alteration would be wrong and unwarranted. So far as I know, it has

not been asked for. I wish that people who are interested in tying up our democracy into neat parcels would ask the people affected whether they want these things to be done. I suppose that if anyone ought to know whether this alteration is required, and whether Catholic clergy are wanted as hon. Members of this House, I ought to know something about it. There are other hon. Members who would know more than I, but I should know something. I can say that I have not heard any one of our people at any time asking for this. I believe I am right in saying—I am prepared to be corrected if I am wrong—that the late Archbishop Myers himself did not say that this alteration was required.
I warn the House to leave well alone. It may be that it is undemocratic and that the thing is not tied up in a neat parcel, but if we want to let ourselves in for a great deal of trouble, this is one way in which we can do it. I can see that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) is dying to get at me. It may be argued that if we accept this Amendment it will be a matter for the hierarchy to decide about whether or not priests should stand as candidates for Parliament. In my Church we have what we call the "lunatic fringe". A certain agitation may go on, and, as the result of any legislation which we may pass in this House, it may well be that one day such people would become candidates for Parliament. I believe that that is something which everyone of us would regret.
There is today a great need—certainly so far as my own Church is concerned—for religion to be kept away from the party political battle. I am all for the average priest or clergyman. Everyone recognises that the people attending church or chapel are people with different political views. The great thing about our democracy is that we have party political battles, a free Press and our own free Churches. If a Catholic priest sitting on the benches opposite attacked me on the policy of the party to which I am so devoted, I can assure hon. Members that I should lash him for all I was worth. Therefore, I say let us keep religion out of this and, with all respect for the democratic arguments and the neatness of parcels, I beg hon. Members not to accept this Amendment.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. J. Simon: It is a pity from some points of view that this debate was interrupted, for it has been, as, I think, those who have sat through it will agree, one of exceptional interest. Some remarkable speeches have been made in it. It has been a widely ranging debate. Mr. Horne Tooke was canvassed on both sides, showing that he is almost as controversial a figure after his death as in his life time. One hon. Gentleman went back even further in time and brought in Titus Oates as well. I was delighted that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) reminded us, in a very moving passage in his speech, that Mark Pattison is still a living force in our literature.
There have been speeches in this debate which went to the fundamental aspects of the relationship of politics and ethics, and politics and religious organisation.
The Amendment proposed and supported by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) and the hon. Member for Dudley Is designed to bring about the repeal of the Statutes which disqualify certain ministers of religion. The Act of 1801 mentioned in the hon. Gentleman's Amendment to the Fourth Schedule disqualifies any person who is ordained to the office of priest or deacon in the Church of England or the Church of Ireland. The answer to the question the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) asked is that it also disqualifies ministers of the Church of Scotland, although there is a procedure whereby they can escape the disqualification.
In addition the Act referred to in another of the Amendments put down by the hon. Members for Dagenham and Dudley, the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829, which was a general Measure of Catholic relief, nevertheless disqualifies any person in Holy Orders in the Church of Rome, thereby bringing that Church in that particular into the same position as the Church of England.
Subsection (3) of this Clause, which it is sought to remove by the Amendment, was, I think, inserted in the draft Bill by the Select Committee presided over by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) as a consequence to the insertion in Clause 1 of the new subsection (4) which generally exempts from dis-

qualification other than the disqualifications contained in the rest of the Bill, and thereby, I suppose, throws sonic doubt on whether the Clergy Disqualification Measures were still effective.
It cannot be denied, I think, that the law at the moment is anomalous. The division of opinion has run clean across the Committee, and not down the centre of the Floor, thereby, as always when that happens, adding to the interest of the debate, and many hon. Members on both sides of the controversy have pointed out the anomalies. It cannot be denied that the law is anomalous, but this matter has been considered in the light of that by two Select Committees of very great eminence and weight.
The Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification, which had the direct cognisance and solely the cognisance of this matter found no evidence of great difficulty or hardship or any indication of public demand to for alteration of the law. That was emphasised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). It may appeal to the Committee as a matter of very great importance when it is sought to make a major change in the law in a matter of fundamental importance to the relation of Church and State by way of an Amendment in Committee on this Bill. The Select Committee went into the matter deeply and could find no desire at all, no public demand, for an alteration of the law.
For example, the Amendment would exempt from disqualification the Clergy of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury said, in evidence before the Select Committee:
If you finally reported that it would he better to leave the thing alone I should not doubt that you will have taken the course of wisdom.
The Irish Church was to the same effect.

Mr. Hugh Delargy: The hon. and learned Gentleman means the Church of Ireland.

Mr. Simon: Yes. It was to the same effect. The Church of Scotland and the Episcopal Church of Scotland were also to the same effect. The Archbishop of Wales gave evidence, too.
The hon. Member was wrong when he said that the Roman Catholic Church resented its exclusion. On the contrary,


as the hon. Member for Bermondsey pointed out, Archbishop Myers stated explicitly, when he gave evidence before the Select Committee, that the Church felt no grievance at the exclusion. He said:
… we have no particular grievance and no particular feelings about being excluded from the House.
Later, he said:
… we are face to face with some internal legislation of our own which forbids any cleric to stand as a candidate for Parliament.

Mr. Wigg: I am sure that the hon. and learned Member does not want to mislead the Committee about what Archbishop Myers said. Would he permit me to draw his attention to page 45 of the Report from the Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification? The Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) put this question to him:
Now the point has been put to us that if a change is going to take place, then it ought not to be for Parliament to debar people from becoming candidates as far as the Church is concerned; that ought to be a matter for the internal discipline of each church. What would be your view?
Archbishop Myers replied:
That represents our standard.

Mr. Simon: The hon. Member is quite right. I was quoting from the same page. It seems to me important that Archbishop Myers said specifically that they have no particular grievance and no particular feelings about being excluded. He made it clear that apart from legislation by Parliament, the Church has its own domestic legislation for exclusion.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: What about the Free Churches?

Mr. Simon: The Free Churches are not subject to any exclusion. I pointed out at the beginning that the law may be said to be anomalous, but the fact remains that from those who are excluded there is no demand for inclusion.
The Select Committee of 1953 also referred to the risk of undesirable religious controversy if this matter were raised and seriously debated as a subject for legislation. As always, the debate this evening has been in admirable temper, but the hon. Member for Bermondsey

pointed out, quite legitimately and very properly, the sort of repercussions which such discussions might have. It seems to the Government that there is a real danger of undesirable religious controversy if this matter is actively to be canvassed, and even more if it is to be implemented. I need not go further into it, because the hon. Member himself explained the sort of reactions which he would have and which I think would be common to many hon. Members.
The matter was considered not only by the Select Committee of 1953, but also by the Select Committee presided over by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South, and that Committee, dealing with the matter in the context of this Bill, decided that the position should not be changed. In those circumstances the Government are bound to give considerable weight, great weight, to those emphatic and recent expressions of view by two Select Committees of great eminence. I therefore cannot recommend acceptance of the Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Dagenham.
I now come to the Amendments moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Freeth). They have this in common with other Amendments, that they are animated by a desire to produce a logical cohesion in the law. They do so not by the method of the hon. Member for Dagenham, which is to remove all the exclusions from all ministers of religion. Their method is to bring the Church in Wales into line with the Church of England. That, of course, would still leave the anomaly, if one considers it such, that the Church of England and the Church in Wales and so on are treated differently from the Free Churches in this connection.

Mr. George Thomas: Could the hon. and learned Gentleman say whether he has had any request from the Church in Wales that this action shall be taken?

Mr. Simon: I was just about to deal with that.
It differs from the Amendment in this respect, that the Church in Wales would have liked to be subject to the same exclusions as the Church of England, but without pressing the matter. The 1953 Select Committee was undoubtedly


left with the opinion that there was no pressure at all and—I am sure the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), who was a member of that Committee, will bear this out—there was no demand for this Amendment either.
On the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend, the Government cannot fail to be impressed by the fact that two Select Committees have recommended against this amendment to the law, that there is no demand for it and, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey indicated, it is undesirable that a matter of the highest importance in the relation of Church and State should be decided in Committee by way of an Amendment to this Bill.
Under those circumstances, I must advise the Committee to reject these Amendments.

Mr. Freeth: Can my hon. and learned Friend hold out any hope at all that the Government intend to take any steps in the near future to try to iron out any of the anomalies which exist?

Mr. Simon: I think it would be wrong to hold out any real hopes. It would be raising hopes which I should not be justified in raising, because this matter has been considered by two Select Committees and there is no public demand. The matter has been discussed this very evening in a most interesting way, but I do not think that I Should be justified in saying that there is any hope of early legislation.

Mr. Delargy: I did not intend to speak until I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). I know that he prefaced his remarks by saying that he was giving a personal view, but some people might think that he was speaking with same authority. I do not share his view.
My hon. Friend addressed himself to two points. He spoke first, as did several other hon. Members, of the propriety of clergymen coming to this House. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) thinks that this House would be better for their presence. I do not know whether they themselves would be the better for coming here. I do not think that the House of Commons is a place where the flower of sanctity flourishes strongly. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey thinks that, on the whole,

it would not be a good thing if they were here, but the arrival or not of clergymen in this House has nothing whatever to do with the Amendment. It is a million to one chance that any clergyman would find his way here if this Amendment were agreed to. This is the whole point of seeking the advice of the hierarchy, a most important point to which I shall refer later—

Mr. Hale: On my hon. Friend's reference to whether a clergyman might find his way here, may I recall to his memory the fact that an old friend of both of us, the Abbé Pierre, was a member of the French Chamber of Deputies for some years after the war and, in consequence, devoted himself to most self-sacrificing social service. He founded the Compagnons de Saint Emmaus, a movement which did more than anything else to save France from decadence.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Delargy: To mention the Abbé Pierre merely proves my point. He quickly discovered, after he had been in the Chamber of Deputies a short while, that it was no place for him at all.

Mr. Hale: He lost the election.

Mr. Delargy: He did not lose the election; he resigned from the M.R.P., and quite rightly, too.
The mere fact that the Joint Under-Secretary of State and others have quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Myers and the heads of other Churches as not wanting this Amendment is proof positive that if it were accepted they would not allow their priests to stand as Parliamentary candidates.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: One has to face the possibility that there might be a secularised priest who had been outlawed, as it were, from his priestly duties standing as a candidate and causing a grave scandal to the whole Catholic community.

Mr. Delargy: Why should a secularised priest not stand as a Parliamentary candidate? I do not see why I should prevent him standing or his coming here.
The second point made by my hon. Friend and by the Joint Under-Secretary of State was that the persons concerned have not been consulted. Who are the


persons concerned? We are the persons concerned. We are the only persons concerned, because our predecessors in this House passed, in 1829, an Act which contained an injustice and one which was based on false premises. It was passed for reasons which everybody now, I think, apart from a few cranks and crackpots, knows to be false. Our predecessors did this wrong thing and we as the persons concerned should undo the injustice perpetrated by this House in 1829. That is the simple reason why I am supporting the Amendment.

Mr. Mellish: I can understand that, but, if that is so, why did not my hon. Friend, myself and others who had a genuine reason for seeing the position altered add our names to the Amendment? Why was it left to two back benchers of our party to raise the matter without any agitation or request from anyone to do so?

Mr. Delargy: I can only speak for myself, but the simple reasons for my not putting my name to the Amendment are: first, ignorance, and, secondly, laziness. Had I been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) to do so, I should certainly have put my name to the Amendment. As I have said, I should not have intervened in the debate but for the speech of my hon Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish).
It seems to me that one of the main purposes of the Amendment is to remedy the injustice perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829, which everyone now thinks is a Measure which should no longer apply.
One last point, When the Joint Under-Secretary of State says that it would be a very undesirable thing to have acrimonious sectarian, bigoted debates here, I agree with him. It would be a most undesirable thing, but something much more undesirable is the passing of legislation to exclude it. We have no right to pass legislation which would exclude any form of debate which is in order, and for these reasons I strongly support the Amendment.

Mr. G. Thomas: I shall not detain the Committee long either, but this is a question of some substance. I listened with

great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) as I did to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy), and I only want to submit that we are behaving like innocents abroad if we believe that clergy take no part in politics. I should be very surprised if my hon. Friend thinks that the priests of his Church, no less than the priests of any other Church, are not interested politically and do not seek to influence the election of people to this House. That is happening all the time. It happens in Cardiff, and I have no doubt that it happens in Bermondsey. It happens in most of the constituencies of hon. Gentlemen who are present here tonight.
My attitude, as a Nonconformist, is that everyone over the age of 21, who is not a Member of the other place or debarred for certain reasons well marked out in the legislation of the land, ought to be able to stand as a candidate for membership of this House. There are many distinguished people in the Church of Rome, the Church of England and the Church in Wales who could make a great contribution to this House.

Mr. Hoy: My hon. Friend has missed out Scotland.

Mr. Thomas: I am leaving the best until last.
The question is not for us to decide. All that faces us here is the question of the rights of the citizen. What rules the churches make is a matter for them. We do not find this House full of Methodist ministers because the Methodist Church has its own understanding of the question.
I submit that the House ought not to let this matter go lightly with the Minister saying that the Government intend to do nothing at all about it simply because it is a thorny problem. Of course, it is a difficult problem, but I submit that it is almost offensive to the Free Churches that they should be put in one category and the Established Church and the Church of Rome should find themselves in another category. As for the Church in Wales, I should take strong exception, as a Nonconformist, to the House seeking to treat it on a different basis from the rest. No Church has priority in dealings with the State so far as Wales is concerned. That battle was settled a long time ago. I urge the Committee not to


seek to reopen that battle in the Principality.

Sir Beverley Baxter: I want to make one point and, having listened to most of the debate, I feel quite deeply upon it. I can imagine the grave embarrassment of the clergyman or priest looking after his flock and, at the same time, attending to his duties here; but that, surely, is for his parishioners and for the priest himself to decide. There are priests in our Upper House. If the voters in a constituency want to return a clergyman or priest I feel that we have no right to say that he, of all people in the country, must be disqualified. It seems to me that that is not our business.
I feel very strongly that we are going beyond our rights, as a House of Commons, if we say that any citizen who is elected by the majority of the voters should he debarred from this House. That is all I have to say. I find that I cannot support this proposal and will abstain from voting.

The Attorney-General: We have had a long and interesting debate, and a wide diversity of view has been expressed on both sides. My hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary has expressed the attitude of the Government to these proposals, for reasons which, I hope, will commend themselves to the Committee.
I should like to make it clear that this is not a Bill which imposes any disqualification on clergymen. The only reason this topic comes up for discussion tonight is that there has to be provision in the Bill to make it quite clear that the Bill does not affect the present law relating to clergymen.
I would remind the Committee of the objects of the Bill. They are to avoid very awkward situations arising in relation to the holding of offices of profit and matters of that sort. It is quite incidental to the Bill, merely because there has to be what one might call a formal part to preserve the law in other respects, that the opportunity is given to raise what has been described as a thorny topic. I do not regret for one moment that it has been raised, because it has been an interesting debate.
Other speakers have said that all this is entirely academic, because if the disqualification was removed no clergyman would ever come here. However that

may be, this is not a provision which seeks to impose any new disqualification at all. As my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State has said, we have had the matter considered by two Select Committees. Neither recommended that at this time any change should be made. We would really be rather unwise if we stirred up feeling on this matter where feeling does not exist already. We would be wiser if we could deal with this problem now, having put it as I hope in perspective.
We are making no change now. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Highgate (Sir B. Baxter) appreciates that we are not seeking by the Bill to impose any further disqualification at all on clergymen. All that we are seeking to do is to leave the law in relation to clergymen as it is, in view of the advice that was given by the witnesses before the Select Committees and the Reports of those Committees.

Mr. Wigg: The Attorney-General is, of course, slightly disingenuous. The Bill does not mean any new disability on the clergy. What it does is to continue an injustice which has lasted 150 years. It is not true that the Government, of their own volition, referred this matter to a Select Committee. It was the energies of my then hon. Friend, Mr. Geoffrey Bing, which secured the submission of the matter before the Select Committee, which reported on clergy disqualification on 10th June, 1953. The Government did absolutely nothing about it. No opportunity was given to the House to give its opinion on the Report of that Select Committee until the Government, in July, 1955, found themselves in some difficulty about the invalidation of two hon. Members.
That presented an opportunity to raise the matter, and it would not have been considered by that Committee but for that fact that a Motion came before the House at 10 o'clock at night and it was possible for me to be persistent enough to ensure that the Committee should consider the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) and I will carry the Amendment to a Division, and on this side of the Committee it will be a free vote. I ask the Attorney-General and his colleagues. out of respect for what the House of


Commons stands for both in the present and the future, to allow hon. Members opposite the same freedom as we have on this side of the Committee and to take a decision, in accordance with their consciences, which is best directed to the

continuation of the House and its influence.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 160, Noes 38.

Division No. 74.]
AYES
[10.59 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Gresham Cooke, R.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)


Aitken, W. T.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Nairn, D. L. S.


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Gurden, Harold
Neave, Airey


Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William
Hail, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)


Arbuthnot, John
Hall, John (Wycombe)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)


Armstrong, C. W.
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)


Ashton, H.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Page, R. G.


Atkins, H. E.
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)


Baldook, Lt.-Comdr. J. M.
Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.
Pargiter, G. A.


Baldwin, A. E.
Hesketh, R. F.
Partridge, E.


Balniel, Lord
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Peart, T. F.


Barber, Anthony
Holland-Martin, C. J.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.


Barter, John
Hornby, R. P.
Pitt, Miss E. M.


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Bidgood, J. C.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pott, H. P.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Bishop, F. P.
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Body, R. F.
Hurd, A. R.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry
Redmayne, M.


Braine, B. R.
Iremonger, T. L.
Ridsdale, J. E.


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Irvine, Bryant Goaman (Rye)
Rippon, A. G. F.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Bryan, P.
Jennings, sir Roland (Hailam)
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Carr, Robert
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Roper, Sir Harold


Channon, Sir Henry
Joseph, Sir Keith
Royle, C.


Chichester-Clark, R.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Keegan, D.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Cole, Norman
Kerr, H. W.
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Kimball, M.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Leburn, W. G.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Crouch, R. F.
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Currie, G. B. H.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)



Dance, J. C. G.
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Temple, John M.


Davidson, Viscountess
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


D'Avigdor-Coldsmid, Sir Henry
MacColl, J. E.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Deedes, W. F.
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Mackeson, Brig, Sir Harry
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Vane, W. M. F.


Errington, Sir Eric
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Maddan, Martin
Vickers, Miss Joan


Fell, A.
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W.(Horncastle)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Fletcher, Eric
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Garner-Evans, E. H.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Whitelaw, W. S. I. (Penrith &amp; Border)


Gibson-Watt, D.
Marshall, Douglas
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Glover, D.
Mathew, R.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Godber, J. B.
Maude, Angus
Woollam, John Victor


Gower, H. R.
Mawby, R. L.



Graham, Sir Fergus
Mellish, R. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grant, W. (Woodside)
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Mr. Oakshott and Mr. Gerald Wills.


Green, A.
Mitchison, G. R.





NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Hubbard, T. F.
Short, E. W.


Awbery, S. S.
Hunter, A. E.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Benson, G.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Stones, W. (Consett)


Boyd, T. C.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Burke, W. A.
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
King, Dr. H. M.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Thornton, E.


Davies, Rt. Hon. Clement (Montgomery)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Wade, D. W.


Delargy, H. J.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Wilkins, W. A.


Grimond, J.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Zilliacus, K.


Hale, Leslie
Oswald, T.



Holman, P.
Pearson, A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Probert, A. R.
Mr. George Wigg and Mr. Parker.


Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Attorney-General: I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
We have now completed the Clauses of the Bill. There are a considerable number of Amendments to be considered, and the new Clauses, but I think that with co-operation on both sides we should be able to complete the Committee stage of this very important Bill in, say, half a day's work. I would think that was reasonable. Although there are on the Notice Paper a large number of Amendments, I would have thought it not necessary, perhaps, to have a long debate on more than a few of them.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

PUBLIC TRUSTEE (FEES) BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

HOSPITAL, CROSBY (FACILITIES)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wills.]

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I wish to raise the matter of hospital accommodation in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, and refer in particular to the Waterloo General Hospital in Crosby. This is a small hospital of 51 beds. It is the only hospital in the National Health Service in the Borough of Crosby and the urban district of Litherland, and it serves the population of that area. It comes within the jurisdiction of the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board and I am anxious to call attention to the decisions made by the Board as they affect the hospital.
I believe that in doing so I shall be able to convince my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, and through him my right hon. Friend, that this is a case in which the interests of economy

in the hospital service and in the interests of the provision of a service for a particular locality it is a matter of which he should take note. In my constituency the Waterloo Hospital is very much "our hospital". There is an element of pride and prestige in this matter. Prior to the appointed day in 1948 there was never any difficulty about obtaining help for the hospital and the citizens of the district were very proud of it. Even today the activities of the hospital management committee and the hospital's League of Friends are matters of great local concern.
Before 1948 plans had been prepared for an extension of the hospital. Three acres of land adjoining it had been purchased and the accommodation was to be extended to about 450 beds. Of course, the whole project was called off in 1948 and we waited to see how these preparations would fit in with the plans of the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board for the whole of the area. It was with some satisfaction that my constituents read the Report of the Board in 1951. The Report stated that, suitably extended, the Waterloo General Hospital was well placed to serve the Waterloo, Crosby and Litherland area, and that the Board had asked the planning authority to earmark the land for that purpose.
That statement in the Board's Report was made as part of the explanation that in accordance with the memorandum from the Ministry entitled "The Development of Consultative Services" the area of the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board was short to the extent of 5,500 general hospital beds; and furthermore that there were three very large hospitals at Walton, Sefton and Newsham, the size of which should be reduced. It was in connection with the reduction of the size of the Walton Hospital that the extension of the Waterloo Hospital was particularly associated.
That is not surprising when one considers the number of cases which are sent from the Crosby area to the Walton Hospital which is a considerable distance away. Taking the 1955 figures, 37 per cent. of the cases from the Crosby area went to Walton, involving an ambulance mileage of 4,375 miles. It may be a small matter, but one can understand from that sort of ambulance mileage for the patients the great inconvenience and


the financial hardship to those who, from a distance, have had to visit relatives or acquaintances in that hospital.
There were two other proposals in connection with the reduction of the size of Walton Hospital, namely, the new hospitals at Fazakerley and Ford. I stress that those projects were for new hospitals and would involve a far greater expense in the setting up of new organisations, new buildings and administration, compared with the extension of an established hospital such as Waterloo.
So much for the 1951 Report, which gave my constituents some cause for anticipating that their needs would be met. I deliberately say "their needs" and not just their pride in their local hospital, because, taking again the 1955 figures, only 25 per cent. of local cases could be accommodated in the Waterloo Hospital. The remaining 75 per cent. of cases were, during that year, sent out of the district to Walton, or to Bootle, or to some other hospital at a distance from my constituency. As many as 14,029 ambulance miles were involved in that alone during 1955. That was for inpatients only. For out-patients the ambulance mileage for sending patients out of the district reached the enormous figure of 56,088. The ambulance mileage for out-patients to Waterloo Hospital—only some 25 per cent. of cases from the district—was only one-seventh of the total ambulance mileage for the year.
In January, 1955, I obtained an assurance from the Board that it was part of its long-term policy that Waterloo Hospital should be extended in size to become a district hospital of about 200 beds. That seemed satisfactory, or at least adequate, although not as much as had been hoped for under the plans before 1948. What the Board meant by "long-term policy" became evident when the Board's Report for 1955 was published. That Report set out the Board's development plans for the next twenty-five years. Although the extension to Waterloo Hospital was mentioned in the 1951 Report, no mention appeared in the 1955 Report. The Fazakerley project was to go ahead, but Waterloo Hospital extension had apparently been shelved for at least twenty-five years. Crosby Borough Council immediately took up the matter with the Board, and was assured that it was the Board's

intention to extend Waterloo Hospital to a district hospital of 200 beds. But apparently that cannot take place until after 1980.
I appreciate that the Board intends at a fairly early date to extend the outpatient facilities at the hospital, but that is really a mere drop in the ocean. One cannot help feeling that this hospital is being de-graded and that there is the possibility that in due course we shall be told that it is not worth extending it at all.
Only during the last few days I have learned that whereas it has always been a hospital for training State registered nurses, it is now to become one for training State enrolled assistant nurses. The reason given for that is that in a small hospital there are not the facilities for training State registered nurses. They have been trained there before. Therefore, I can only think that this means that the facilities must have been recently reduced. I fear that that is a process which is bound to occur in a small hospital under National Health Service conditions if there is no prospect of the extension of that hospital at an early date.
It becomes more and more difficult for a small hospital of 51 beds to obtain consultant services. Another part of this vicious circle is that ambulances are directed not to take orthopaedic cases to Waterloo Hospital, but to take them to other hospitals some considerable distance away. Thus, if in a road accident or is crippled in an accident at home in Crosby there is a suspicion that the injured person has broken a bone, that injured person is rushed to a distant hospital. It causes this ridiculous spectacle, that a boy who, playing on one of the many school playing fields within a radius of a mile of this hospital, sprains his ankle while playing football, is whisked away to a distant hospital.
I am very well aware that a hospital board has only a certain amount of money to spend, and that it is the board's responsibility to decide how it spends that money, and what priorities it will adopt amongst the several schemes within its area. However, I ask my hon. Friend to interfere in this case for the following reasons, which I summarise. The first is that the district cannot go on for another twenty-five years, as this 1955 Report of the Board anticipates, with a hospital which serves only one-quarter


of the needs of the district. Secondly, it is extravagant to build new hospitals rather than to extend established hospitals. Thirdly, it is grossly uneconomical to continue to expend such an enormous ambulance mileage in taking both in-patients and out-patients out of the district. Fourthly, a small hospital cannot retain even its existing facilities if there is no prospect in the near future of its being extended.
In connection with this hospital there is a real fear, supported by recent evidence, that it will meet the needs of the district less and less. Therefore I ask my hon. Friend to appreciate that there are matters of major principle involved, and not to tolerate the running down of an established hospital, to the detriment of the population it is trying to serve, in favour of new buildings and new projects.

11.23 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), first, for the lengthy notice which he gave me of the matters that he proposed to raise in the debate. Moreover, I think it is excellent that he should have chosen this subject for debate on this Motion, as I know that he and the inhabitants of the Borough of Crosby and of the Urban District of Litherland whom he represents have been for a long time concerned about the hospital facilities within their boundaries.
I deal first with one small matter which my hon. Friend mentioned; what he called the down-grading of the nurse-training school. No decision has been taken, and the suggestion is now under consideration. I would remind him that it is in the long run entirely a matter for the Nursing Council, in which the Minister would not normally intervene.
I will turn, if I may, to the question of accommodation, which was the main subject of my hon. Friend's speech. The fact is that the Waterloo Hospital, which has served the area well for many years, is unable to meet all the present-day needs. As my hon. Friend said, proposals were already in hand for an extension of the hospital before the appointed day in 1948. The Regional Hospital Board fully agrees that the hospital should be enlarged beyond its present accommodation of 51 beds, and it is its inten-

tion that in due course it should become a district hospital of 200 beds. It has land attached to it which, if suitably extended, would provide a site for the extension of the hospital.
The fact is, however, that there are other parts of the region which are expanding more rapidly than either Crosby or the population of Litherland and which in consequence are more urgently in need of hospital accommodation. For example, developments taking place or already completed at Netherton, Kirkby, Croxteth, Daysbrook, Fazakerley, Sparrow Hall, and in Litherland itself will in the near future provide a population of some 100,000 persons, and the Board considers that priority must be given to the new hospital at Fazakerley to cater for the needs of that area.
Moreover, a new hospital is urgently required in Birkenhead. More general hospital accommodation is also required for the south Liverpool area and a hospital is contemplated to cater for this need. The rapidly developing area of Ellesmere Port will also require hospital provision in the near future. In addition to all these urgent requirements, the Board has also to bear in mind the urgent need for accommodation for mental health and mental deficiency purposes and for the chronic sick.
The Borough of Crosby adjoins Bootle, and the residents can readily take advantage of hospital facilities available in the north Liverpool area. Bootle Hospital and Walton Hospital are easily accessible, and there is close contact between the Northern Hospital branch of the United Liverpool Hospitals and Waterloo Hospital.
A number of accident cases from the Crosby area go to Bootle Hospital which is recognised as an accident hospital and which receives a large number of casualties from north Liverpool and the nearby dock and industrial area.
In view, therefore, of the existing hospital facilities in the adjacent area to the Borough of Crosby and of the more urgent needs of other areas for new hospital accommodation, the Board regrets that it is unable to contemplate any new hospital developments at Crosby in the near future.
It is, I think, fair to say that residents of the borough do not have to travel unduly far for hospital treatment or,


indeed, as far as is the case in many other areas. My hon. Friend quoted certain statistics which sounded overwhelming, but in fact the average number of ambulance miles per out-patient in Crosby is 6·9, which is precisely the national average. It cannot be claimed that Crosby is exceptional in this matter.
It has been suggested by him that because Waterloo Hospital is not mentioned in the Liverpool 25-year hospital development plan, the further development of Waterloo Hospital cannot be contemplated for the next twenty-five years. I do not think it is right to make so pessimistic an assumption. The Liverpool 25-year hospital development plan has been prepared by a joint planning committee of the Regional Hospital Board, the Board of Governors of the United Liverpool Hospitals, and the University of Liverpool, in order to coordinate the Regional Hospital Board's long-term plans with the proposals for the development of a new teaching hospital.
There are, no doubt, many desirable improvements not mentioned in the 25-year plan which the Board will need to consider, but the Board's building programme at present does not go beyond the year 1959-60. In view, however, of the many urgent claims for hospital improvements which it has to take into consideration, the Board does not think that any major development at Waterloo Hospital is very likely in the near future. It is, however, entirely aware of the inadequacy of the out-patient facilities at Waterloo Hospital and is considering proposals for improving the out-patient and physiotherapy departments and of making some re-adjustments in the operating theatre in the near future. I understand that the sketch plans for the proposed new departments have been prepared and that they have been agreed with the North Liverpool Hospital Management Committee and the medical board of the hospital. Subject to the necessary capital being available, the Board intends to start work on this project in the spring of 1958.
The Walton, Bootle and Waterloo hospitals, all of which belong to the same hospital management committee group, i.e. north Liverpool, to some extent have consultant staff in common. There is also

an emergency bed bureau service linked with the local ambulance service. Above all, the hospitals are not a great distance from each other; they are all within two to five miles.
The responsibility of regional hospital boards in planning the hospital services in their areas is not an easy one. Funds available for capital development are necessarily limited and the board has to make the best plans it can within the limits of the sums allocated from year to year. There are a number of other schemes which the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board considers more urgent than the extension of the Waterloo Hospital. It has come to that view after considering all the hospital needs of its area. I am sure that in doing so it has given full weight to the representations made in the past by my hon. Friend and by Crosby Borough Council. It would be quite wrong on my part to press the Board to assign to any particular scheme a priority which it did not consider justified.
A further point is perhaps worth mentioning. In any one year the Board does not know, nor does the Minister, precisely how much money is to be available during a particular future year. The use which can be made of the allocations for new schemes depends largely on how much is required to be spent in each year on the schemes already in progress. Moreover, development in the matter of hospital requirements is not subject to exact prediction. Unforeseen needs may arise or anticipated requirements may turn out to be more or less urgent than was originally expected. One could not ask the Board to say exactly how soon it would proceed with this scheme which, as I have said, does not rank very high on its list.
To sum up. Within the limits of capital available for development, the matter is in the hands of the Regional Board. It is the responsible body and the best qualified to decide priorities within its area, but in making its plans it will no doubt take into account what my hon. Friend has said so moderately and so fairly tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Twelve o'clock.